


Blue Like Heaven

by rei_c



Series: Five Districts, Five Drugs [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bigotry & Prejudice, Canonical Character Death, Clairvoyance, Drug Abuse, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Jessica Ships It, M/M, Sibling Incest, Stanford Era, Wicca, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-27
Updated: 2007-01-31
Packaged: 2018-06-10 02:20:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6934207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rei_c/pseuds/rei_c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean goes to pick Sam up from Stanford and ends up finding more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

With traffic on Embarcadero behind him, Dean calls the registrar's office and says he works for a law firm he picked out of the San Francisco phone book not five minutes before, says that a "Samuel Winchester's applied for a job and lists Stanford as his current enrollment. It's just procedure, background checks, you know how it goes," and the woman on the other end of the phone sighs in agreement. He can hear her clicking away at a computer, hears her make a noise that only ever accompanies frowns.

"I'm sorry. Mr. Winchester was a student here, but he resigned his scholarship and transferred out four semesters ago. If you give me just one second," she says, and now Dean's not breathing. "Yes, we sent a transcript to the City College of San Francisco at that time." 

Dean exhales, flirts a bit more with the woman, and hangs up, muttering, "I am _so_ going to kill you when I track you down."

In the end, it's not that hard.

\-- 

Dean drives into San Francisco, finds a park, leaves the Impala in a lot, ends up sitting on the ground, back leaning against a tree, and taking a nap for a few hours. He’s got the props, leather jacket on the ground next to him, two books on electrical engineering, and when a shadow falls over his face and wakes him up, he’s looking at a little girl. 

“Hey,” he says gently, and flips the page of the book open on his lap, something to do with zero cross circuits he think he learned about when he was eleven. “You lost or something?” 

The girl tilts her head, then smiles at him, wide and open, and laughs before running away. Dean keeps an eye on her—there are creatures that would come out here in the darkening twilight, tempted by the promise of the kid’s innocence—but she runs to an older woman, hugs the woman’s legs, and the two walk off together, medium-sized dog romping at the end of a leash next to them. 

Dean watches them go, swallows at the picture they make, and stands up, bones popping, joints protesting the movement. He checks his watch, sees he’s been here long enough to consider it a full night’s sleep, and saunters back to the Impala, seeing a few girls, as well as a handful of guys, check him out. 

He decides he needs some money; looking for Sam can wait until tomorrow morning, especially since Dean has no idea where to begin, other than following the lead to City College. He remembers his father saying something about the Upper Haight, spoiled bohemian rich kids who don’t know a con when they see one, are all too eager to hand over their parents’ money, so Dean puts the books back in the car and crosses the street, heading for the corner of Haight and Ashbury, intent on finding a bar with a good crowd to hustle, play some pool, maybe some darts, and get a few hours of sleep before resuming the search for Sam. 

It’s busy, a Thursday night, and Dean strolls down the street, looking at each bar and pub, trying to find one that looks as if it might have easy marks. He’s a couple blocks down when he sees a good one, lots of people going in and out, everyone smiling, having a good time, so Dean goes to the door. Two girls are on their way out, so he holds the door open for them, looking them over but being casual, easy, about it. The first girl, tiny little blonde with a gorgeous, if half-drunk, smile, thanks him and then giggles. 

The second girl makes Dean do a double-take. She’s easily as tall as him, and it’s automatic to look and see how high her heels are; he raises an eyebrow when he sees she’s wearing sandals that rest flat on the ground. He smiles at her, another pretty blonde, wavy hair and open hazel eyes, eyes that remind Dean a little too much of Sam’s. She smiles back, opens her mouth to say thank you, he thinks, but she stops before she says anything, frowns and gives him a closer look. 

The first girl tugs on her hand, says, “Jess, c’mon, who _knows_ what the boys’ve been up to,” but the second girl, Jess, shakes her head and holds her ground. 

“Becky, God, hold on,” she mutters, and as Dean’s trying to find a way to get past the two, Jess says, “Dean?” He stiffens, looks at her again, closer, trying to see if her face jogs any memories, anything that might tell him why and how this random chick in San Francisco knows his name. 

“Oh, you’re kidding, right?” Becky says, low husky voice threaded through alcohol and laughter. “Dean? Now you’re seeing things like Sam, come on, let’s _go_.”

Dean tilts his head to one side, studies them both, and says, eyebrow raised, “Sam?” because this is just impossible. 

Still, Jess smiles, grabs Dean’s hand, and pulls him along with her and Becky. “I’ll explain in the cab,” she says.

Dean digs his heels in, says, “I have a car; it’s not too far away. How ‘bout you explain now?” and pulls his hand out of Jess’. 

“Fine,” she says with a shrug, and grabs her friend as Becky lurches, starts laughing at something no one else can see. “You’re Dean. I mean, you have to be, you look just like the picture Sam’s always carrying around, and he thought you’d be coming, wouldn’t tell me why, but he’s like that sometimes, y’know? Oh, and I’m Jess, Jessica, and this is Rebecca, and Sam’s my fiancé. He’s at home watching the game with Zach, Becky’s brother.” She pauses, then says, eyes narrowed, “You _are_ Dean Winchester, right?” 

Dean looks down, sees a ring on the right finger, looks back up and has to convince his mouth to close. “Yeah,” Dean says, shocked and suspicious and hurt and thankful at all once, because this is far better than having to track Sam down, but this chick, this Jess, Sam’s _marrying_ her and no one knew? 

“All right, then,” Jess says, and the frown’s gone, the smile’s back. “Where’s this car of yours? Sam said you have a classic?” 

\--

Jess directs him to a small building down a couple blocks from Haight Street and over a few from Ashbury; Dean hates one-way streets but it’s not so bad with Jess sitting in the passenger seat and stroking the leather, Becky in the back, both of the girls talking over one another to tell him the fastest way to get there. 

“Look for the smoke,” Becky suggests, managing to sound serious for all of five seconds before descending into a fit of giggles. 

“Park up there,” Jess orders, and when they do, Jess leads him, with Becky trailing behind them, to the alley next to a bookstore, one with gold letters painted on the window and a small discreet alarm system that Dean recognises as a pretty damn good one. She jiggles a key in the back door lock and disables the alarm when the door opens. Dean hears laughter and yelling coming from up a narrow staircase. Some of the noise is new, coming from a person Dean’s never met before, but the rest of it, the quieter shouting, if such a thing is possible, makes Dean’s stomach swirl, makes his throat clench. 

He takes the steps two at a time, leaves Jess to reset the alarm and haul Becky in and up by herself, and when he gets to the top of the staircase, turns around the corner of the landing, Sam is right there, sitting on a couch, legs spread and leaning forward, throwing pieces of popcorn at a television. 

“Fucking shit, Winchester, I don’t know how the fuck you do it!” Dean’s eyes shift, quickly take in a guy sitting on a recliner, one hand over his eyes as the other’s passing a twenty dollar bill in Sam’s direction. 

Sam takes it, drops it on the coffee table quickly, as if it’s burnt him, and shakes his head. He recovers from whatever that was, says, “And thank _you_ , Zachary Warren, for never learning,” laughs, and stands, doing a miniature impromptu victory dance. He looks ridiculous, but as he turns, he stops, seeing Dean just standing there, frozen. Sam blinks, hovers, as if he doesn’t know whether to stand there or go over and wrap Dean in his arms. 

Jess comes up behind them, pushes Becky ahead of her and around Dean, and elbows Dean out of the way so she can follow. “Look who I found,” she says, standing in front of Sam, and while Dean’s looking, watching, she reaches up, curls her hands around Sam’s neck and pulls his head down, kisses him. 

One of Sam’s giant hands cups Jess’ cheeks, and it’s a long, painful moment before Dean hears Jess ask, “You two have a good night?” 

Zach snorts, picks up a handful of popcorn and throws it at them, says, “Enjoy dinner on me. Sam’s ripped me off. Again. Who’s that? The puppy wasn’t bad enough, Jess, now you’re bringing home waifs? What’s your man think about all this?” and Zach doesn’t even look at Sam, just tilts himself back in his chair.

“Wait, a puppy?” Dean can’t help himself, because seeing Sam, like this, with a fiancée, living above a bookstore and apparently owning a puppy, is so surreal his mind can’t process it. 

“Aeschylus,” Jess says proudly. “My parents took him off our hands for a while,” and Becky falls on top of Zach, giving him a hug, Dean apparently forgotten by both of them. Jess looks up at Sam, must share some secret couple-y communication, because a moment later, Sam smiles and nods, looks at Dean, gestures behind the couch. 

“Want a beer?” Sam asks.

As Jess flutters around the brother and sister, Dean shrugs, says, “What the hell,” and follows his brother into a kitchen. 

\--

Sam flicks the light on with his elbow and Dean gets a better idea of the place, can see more now than he could when the only light came from the glow of a television screen and some plain white Christmas lights strung up around the landing. The kitchen’s small, seems dwarfed by Sam, who grabs a pair of gloves from one end of the counter, takes a beer out of the fridge, pops the top and hands it to Dean, before filling up a kettle and turning on one of the stove burners. 

Sam putters around with mugs and some jar of green herbs, so Dean looks around, sees a row of plants on the windowsill above the sink, recognises the smell of sage and lavender permeating everything, sees a row of bells strung near the curtains and a small bowl of salt and a crust of bread on the counter. 

There’s a block of knives a little further down, and Dean pulls one out, raises an eyebrow when he tests the edge and finds his thumb bleeding a moment later. He nods, impressed, puts it back, and runs a finger along a curved row of words, painted on the sky-blue wall. _Absit Omen_ in red, _Veritas Omnia Vincit_ in green, _Pax et Lux_ in yellow, _Non Scholae Sed Vitae Discimus_ in black. 

“What kinda life are you living here, Sammy?” Dean asks, not facing his brother. 

Sam, behind him, filling up a jug with water, laughs, says, “Do you want the short answer or the long answer?” 

“Short for now,” Dean replies, and turns, sees Sam leaning over the sink, reaching to open the window. Dean’s eyes trail the muscles in Sam’s arms, the curve of Sam’s back and hips, the patch of skin between shirt and jeans, and he coughs, looks away, when Sam finally unlatches the thing, checks to make sure there’s no one outside before he spills one small dash of water out of the window and then pours the rest over the plants. 

“Jess’ parents run the store downstairs,” Sam says. He finishes watering the plants, sets the jug behind the sink and turns around, leans against the counter. “I work here, go to school part-time. Jess and I met about a week after I started and we’ve been together ever since.” It’s a cautious tone, giving breath to cautious words, and Sam shifts on his feet when he adds, “I proposed a few months ago. Thought about calling Dad, but didn’t.”

“Ever think about calling me?” Dean asks, and he’s gratified to see Sam’s cheeks redden as his brother looks away. 

Sam swallows, says, “Dean, we can’t. _I_ can’t. Not now,” but he’s not saying it to Dean’s face. “Jess and I, we’re good. We have a good thing. I love her.”

They fall into silence after that, and when it stretches to the point of discomfort, the kettle starts to whistle. 

Dean watches as Sam pours two cups full of boiling water, switches the gas burner off, starts to stir. One of them smells pungent, the other thin, and when Sam drops the spoon into the sink, Jess walks in, face open, trusting. He wonders if she knows anything about Sam, then wonders if he does, this Sam who’s giving his fiancée a cup of weak-smelling tea, who looks at home here, in this small, normal kitchen. 

Jess murmurs her thanks and reaches above the microwave, pulls down a wire holder filled with prescription bottles. Dean frowns, eyes narrowed and trying to read the names of the drugs, the name on the bottle, but Jess has opened one, is counting the pills inside, and she looks up with a sigh, pinning her eyes on Sam. 

She’s got her back to Dean, he can’t see the look on her face, but Sam looks sheepish and stubborn at the same time, says, “I only took it a few hours early, Jess.”

“A few hours early? Sam,” Jess says, putting the top back on the bottle. She’s almost got it back in the box, but then Sam’s hand, still wearing that glove, both of them still covered, is resting on hers, and she shakes her head, says, “No, Sam. There’s ibuprofen, that’ll have to be good enough for now.” 

“Jess,” Sam says, pleads, and Jess moves her hands, grasps the edges of the counter. Dean can see her knuckles turning white. “Jess, one more won’t.” 

“Don’t,” Jess says, voice low and fierce. “Don’t, Sam.” She bangs the little orange container back in the box, shoves it into the cupboard, and takes a key off the top of the microwave, locks the cabinet and lets the key fall down her shirt, into the valley between her breasts. 

Dean looks back and forth between the two of them, and says, “Should I know what’s going on here?” 

\--

Zach and Becky are bundled up in the guest bedroom, both of them snoring, cuddled up next to each other. Jess is standing in the doorway, watching, and Dean pauses on his way back from the bathroom, looks around her, wonders what it is she’s seeing to put that dopey smile on her face. His eyes flick to Jess, around the room, then back to the bed, and he must make a noise, move suddenly, or something, when he sees that Zach and Becky are twisted together, their legs twined, Becky’s hand on Zach’s arm, his on her ass, pressing them tighter, holding them together, because Jess turns to look at him, the smile leaving her face in favour of a hard-nosed look.

“They _are_ related, right?” he murmurs. “I mean, they’re not married or dating, you said they’re brother and sister.” 

Jess lifts her chin, stares Dean down, and says, “That shouldn’t be a problem for you, Dean.” 

Maybe she does know Sam pretty well. 

Dean’s not sure what sort of look he gets on his face after that, but whatever it is, it makes Jess’ expression soften, makes her take Dean by the arm and pull him away from the guest bedroom. She closes the door, leaving Zach and Becky to sleep off the alcohol, and leads Dean back to the kitchen. 

Sam’s sitting at the table and there’s a bottle of ibuprofen on the counter, a mug of something that smells repugnant cradled in Sam’s gloved hands. Jess rifles through the fridge, pulls out a bottle of beer and a bottle of water, hands the first one to Dean and tells him to sit down, get comfortable, keeps the water for herself and straddles a chair on one side of Sam. Dean sits down, pops open the beer, and looks back and forth between Sam and Jess, waiting.

No one says anything, Jess seems content to wait and Sam’s sitting there, staring down at the contents of his mug, so Dean finally has a swallow of his beer and asks, “Why’d you transfer out?” Sam jumps at the noise, and when Jess reaches over to rub Sam’s knee, Dean frowns. He doesn’t remember Sam being this twitchy, this jumpy, this quiet, and he’d like to know what happened to make that change. 

“I was sick,” Sam says after a moment, and Dean watches as Jess moves her chair closer to Sam, leans in to him as if giving him strength. “About a month into classes, I ended up in the hospital. Meningitis. My fever topped out at 105, I had the headaches, the delirium, everything. It,” he pauses, searches for words, eventually says, “It wasn’t pretty. I ended up missing too much time to think about catching up, and I couldn’t take an extension because of the scholarship, so I decided to work a little, enrol part-time here in the city.” 

“You never called us,” Dean says. “Sam.”

Sam shakes his head, bites his lower lip, and finally looks at Dean, and says, “I know. I just. I couldn’t.” Sam’s eyes are a maelstrom of emotion, too much for Dean to puzzle out before Sam drops his gaze again and goes on. “Jess’ parents were hiring someone to go through their older books here and do some research on what prices they might get at auctions or from other booksellers.”

“It’s a small shop,” Jess interrupts. “But we’ve got a good collection. My parents are fascinated by old things and they needed someone who could read more than just English. I pretty much don’t,” she adds with a smile, one Sam mirrors as he looks at her. 

“When they realised I could read Latin, especially, they hired me on the spot. I started working here, ended up doing some classes at City, take some from New College, teach a t’ai chi class a couple times a week at the community centre.” Sam takes a sip of his tea, Dean thinks, judging by the smell, and shrugs. “It’s not, y’know, big or anything, but it’s good. It’s a good life.”

Dean expects to hear challenge in Sam’s voice, or even bitterness, because as much as Sam says this is a good life, it was never his idea of one, doesn’t have anything to do with the law or big corporate America. He doesn’t hear either of those tones to Sam’s voice, which relaxes him a little, but Dean does hear some sadness, some longing still there, not completely exorcised by Sam’s running away from their family, and he wonders about it, where it comes from and what it means. 

“Sam’s a good person,” Jess says, and before Dean can agree, can say he wasn’t thinking anything against that, she goes on, says, “My parents love him, his students adore him, and he’s only a few classes away from a degree now,” and Dean’s beginning to think she’s trying just a little too hard. 

“Hey, I’m not gonna disagree,” Dean says, eyes flicking between the two of them, between them and this kitchen, all of the little things that, separately, fade into the background of what looks like a pretty peaceful, somewhat bohemian life, but together, they start to add up, paint a different picture. “Just, what aren’t you telling me? Because there’s obviously something,” and he raises an eyebrow, looks pointedly at the gloves that Sam’s still wearing. 

Jess stands, moves behind Sam to the sink, refills her water bottle and sticks it in the fridge, grabs a different one, and rubs Sam’s shoulders before she sits down again. 

“When I was sick,” Sam says, slowly, hesitantly. “When I had the fever, it did something to me. I didn’t notice until a few weeks after I was out, when I was working downstairs. I touched one of the books and, and saw this _flash_. Jess’ dad was behind the counter, he found me in the back room, passed out cold on the floor. It started happening more and more, though I never passed out again. The flashes, they came together, started making sense as images. About a year later, when I thought I could handle it well enough, I started getting sound as well, then smell, and then feeling.” 

Dean holds up a hand, frowns. He opens his mouth to say something, then shakes his head and looks at Sam, eyes narrowed, and tries again. “You’re saying you got a fever, and now you see things when you touch books?” 

Jess takes one of Sam’s hands, threads her fingers between Sam’s covered ones, and says, “It’s not just books, Dean.” Jess looks at Sam, who nods, traces the curve of the table with his other hand, and then she looks at Dean, who recognises the set of her jaw as stubbornness, the curve of her lips as honesty. 

“Sam’s a clairvoyant, one of the strongest I’ve ever met. He can’t see the future, but he sees the past and present, doesn’t just see it, but _lives_ it, and he extrapolates patterns from it, as best we can guess. I don’t know what the fever did, whether it unlocked something that Sam already had or gave him completely new abilities, but it’s something we’ve learned to live with, something we’ve learned to use.” 

“Outside of the bar, you said Sam thought I’d be coming,” Dean says, leaning back now, bowled over. Jess nods, so Dean looks at Sam and asks, “How’d you know?” 

Sam smiles, it’s tight and drawn and doesn’t reach his eyes. “The other day, Jeanette, Jess’ mom, brought in a book that Dad flipped through once. When I touched the pages, I saw the two of you talking, heard my name mentioned a few times. It didn’t sound casual.” 

Dean thinks that over, nods, and looks back at Sam’s girl, says, “You believe in this. You said Sam’s the strongest clairvoyant you’ve met. How’s a girl like you get mixed up with psychics?” 

Jess laughs, and the sound seems to break some of tension in the room, tension Dean hadn’t realised it was there until it left. He’s not sure who it came from, or why, but he breathes a little easier now, takes a long swallow of his beer, and notices out of the corner of his eyes, pinned on Jess, that Sam’s watching him, watching Dean’s throat works as he tips the bottle back. 

She speaks, and Sam’s eyes flick away, guilty, and the rhythm of his leg, bouncing under the table, stutters.

“My mom was born here, grew up here in the Haight,” she says, and Sam smiles, seems to settle, as if he’s heard this story before, loves it. “She was nine when the summer of love hit, and the hippies never really left. When she was growing up, she fell in with a group down the street, dropped some acid, started getting interested in tarot, crystals, palm reading, things like that. My dad came here instead of college in the seventies, dodged the draft and went off the radar.” 

Jess laughs at the phrase, mumbles something about how absurd it sounds, though Sam doesn’t share her amusement, and neither does Dean. 

“He loved books,” she goes on, “came for City Lights and ended up meeting my mom at a Winterland Ballroom concert. They’re both hippies, still,” she says, shaking her head, “and they raised me to have an open mind. I started getting interested in Wicca when I was younger, ended up joining a local coven when I was seventeen.” 

Strangely enough, that relaxes Dean even more. It explains the herbs around the kitchen, the plants everywhere, the colours and little superstitious things, and yeah, he might not be so keen on the idea of this girl marrying his brother, but at least Sam had the good sense to find a chick that doesn’t balk at salt lines and stuffing herbs in the walls. He’s never met a Wiccan he didn’t like, met a few witches, but there’s a difference and Dean knows it well. 

He breathes deeply, inhales and exhales a few times, looking at his beer, thumb tracing the curve in the bottle. Sam’s psychic. Sam’s getting married. 

“This might be a little personal,” Dean says, and he hears Sam mutter something, hears the tone, not the words, and grins, big and wide, as he looks at his brother. “Tell me to fuck off if you want, but, dude. Do you have to keep the gloves on when you two have sex?” 

Sam purses his lips, and Dean’s smile fades a little at the warning look in Sam’s eyes; he knows enough to realise that Sam’s telling him to back off, but not enough to know why, or about what. 

“Jess is the only person I can touch without getting feedback,” Sam says, and the tone’s curiously blank, at odds with the look in Sam’s eyes. “I don’t know why, I’ve never met anyone else like that.” 

“So the answer’s no, then,” Dean asks, pushing, though he doesn’t know why, exactly, he wants to, why he is. 

Jess leans over, wraps one arm around Sam’s shoulders, rests her head on his arm, and looks at Dean. Under that liquid gaze, the action that smacks of possession, Dean shifts, suddenly uncomfortable, suddenly feeling as if he doesn’t belong here, as if this is one more part of the country he’s not welcome in. It hurts. 

“Sam doesn’t have to, no,” Jess murmurs. “Not with me.” 

Dean gives her a forced smile, raises his bottle in acknowledgement and congratulations both, and drains the rest of the beer before kicking his chair back, standing up. “I’ll leave you two to it, then,” he says. 

As he’s putting the bottle in the sink, Jess stands first, followed by Sam.

“Stay tonight,” Jess says, reaching out and resting a hand on Dean’s arm. “You haven’t told us why you came, and I don’t think we’re ready for more soul-sharing. The couch is comfy, I promise. No lumps.” 

Dean looks at Sam, unwilling to respond without knowing how his brother feels. It’s tense between them, probably always will be until they talk about everything that happened before Sam left, before they talk about the way Sam left, and even if Jess is picking up on it, there’s nothing Dean can do about it. 

Sam’s looking at Jess, more of that silent communication Dean’s seen couple after couple, the kind deeply in love, possess, use, and he wants nothing more than to be able to read the words, hear the tones, flowing back and forth between them, wants nothing more than to have that same connection with his brother. It makes him ache in places he’d thought the hunt had cured him of, makes him prepare for Sam to say no. 

Sam doesn’t. “Stay,” he says, low and soft and quiet, eyes shining, brimming with something Dean’s lost the ability to recognise after three years away. Dean blinks, it makes Sam laugh and say it again. “Stay, Dean.” 

“Let me get some stuff out of my car,” he says after a moment, and Sam nods, shifts and pulls Jess tight against his hip, gives Dean the code to the alarm. 

\--

Dean gets outside, closes the door behind him and leans on it, breathing in the night air, listening to the sounds of traffic and people from near and far away. It’s just for a moment, to settle himself, to try and process everything he’s learned, but even five minutes later, of staring blindly into space, it’s not enough, so Dean walks around to the Impala, grabs his duffel, trades the gun he’s carrying for something a little smaller, and looks up at the window of his brother’s apartment, his and Jess’. He can see them, the outline of Sam’s neck and head above the row of plants, Jess’ arms winding around Sam, Sam leaning down to kiss her, one hand cupping the side of her face. 

He knows he should stop, get back in the house, remind them they have company, but he’s frozen, watching them. They break apart, Sam bumps his forehead against Jess’, and it looks like he says something. She pulls back, shakes her head, and as she moves out of the picture, Sam follows, one hand raised as if pleading. Dean frowns, tilts his head to think about that, but sees Sam come back a moment later, look out of the window and put something in his mouth, swallow it dry. 

\--

The door clicks closed in near-silence when Dean gets back inside. All three locks on the door get turned, and he pauses for a moment after setting the alarm, looks down a narrow corridor that, he guesses, leads to the back of the bookstore, before treading up the steps. The light in the kitchen’s off when Dean turns on to the landing, and a few blankets and pillows are piled on the couch. 

“Sam’s in bed,” Jess says, emerging from the hallway. “Headache. He said he was doing all right, but that twenty Zach gave him, it pushed it over the edge from annoyance to migraine. He’ll sleep for about six hours.” 

“You know my brother pretty well,” Dean says, not thinking as he places the gun on the coffee table and slips his jacket off. 

Jess leans against the wall, folds her arms over her chest, and Dean can’t help looking at the picture she makes, ready for bed, wearing a pair of cotton pajama pants and a spaghetti-strap top, hair loose and curling in waves over her shoulder. “I know who he is now,” she says, “but not so much about the person he was before I met him. He likes to talk about you, about your father, tells a lot of good stories, but not much about the way he grew up, anything about what your dad does apart from saying he’s sort of like a demon hunter.” 

Dean nods, says, “We were trained not to talk about it. Not many people believe you when its career day at school and you say your dad’s too busy exorcising people to come and talk to the class.” She smiles at that, and its one more thing Dean sees, one more reason he can believe his brother fell in love with this girl. Hell, if Dean was the type to fall in love, he’d be tempted. 

“Sleep well, Dean,” Jess says. “You know where the bathroom is. If you need anything, help yourself,” and she disappears back into the hallway. 

Dean spreads out some blankets, props the pillows at one end and stuffs the gun underneath. He glides to the bathroom and changes, pisses, brushes his teeth with Sam’s toothbrush, and when he comes out again, he hears low murmurs coming from the one room he hasn’t seen yet. With quiet steps, Dean tiptoes to the closed door and listens, practically not breathing. 

“…want to do?” Jess is saying, and then there’s a popping noise, like she’s just gotten into the bed and the wood or springs have shifted. 

“Jess, I _can’t_.” Sam sounds pained, and a moment later Dean hears something that might be blankets, hears someone kiss someone else. 

“Get some sleep, Sam. Once Dean tells us why he’s here, then you can think about it. Promise me you’ll try?”

A sigh, then, “I promise,” and Dean creeps back to the couch, tries to puzzle out what they were talking about as he lies down, but ends up falling asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

The gun’s in his hand when Dean wakes up, in his hand and pointed at a shadow moving across the room. 

“It’s just me,” the shadow says, and it takes Dean a moment to remember where he is, to remember that Sam’s there, and the shadow isn’t just taking Sam’s voice to try and trick him. Or maybe it is, Dean’s not really sure. 

He turns on a lamp and sits up, takes in Sam’s sweats, t-shirt, the worn-in running shoes and faded blue gloves, the mp3 player strapped around Sam’s left arm, above his elbow, tight and wearing gouges into the skin. 

“I’m going for a jog,” Sam says, low and quiet. “Go back to sleep.” 

Dean looks at his watch, raises an eyebrow when he sees it’s just over six hours since Sam went to bed, and says, “I’ll come, too. Won’t be able to get back to sleep now anyway,” and yawns as he stands, stretches. 

“You have some clothes?” Sam asks, and shrugs when Dean nods in the direction of his duffle. He takes the mp3 player off, says, “All right. Get changed. I’m ready when you are.” 

\--

It doesn’t take Dean long to get ready, not after years of learning how to wake up as soon as his eyes are open. Sure, he likes his coffee in the morning, likes the chance to stretch and shower, maybe catch something on TV, but it’s not necessary. He emerges from the bathroom after three minutes, cold water still drying on his face, clinging to the short hairs at the back of his neck, and pauses outside the kitchen. 

He sees Sam standing by the counter, the wire holder of pill bottles out even though Dean doesn’t think Sam used a key to unlock the cabinet. One of Sam’s hands is hovering over the bottle Jess picked up the night before, shaking and almost turning white with the effort of keeping it there. Dean doesn’t know if Sam’s ready to pick the bottle up or turn away, but he’s only been watching for a second, and then Sam sees him, almost flinches. 

Instead of reaching for the prescription bottle, Sam picks up the aspirin, pops out three tablets and swallows them dry, puts the holder away. “Ready?” he asks, voice curiously blank, so at odds with the way Sam seems pale, uneasy, eyes darting back to the cabinet, but before Dean can ask, Sam’s pushed away from the counter, crossed the kitchen, tossed Dean a bottle of water. 

\--

Sam even jogs with gloves on. It’s a little hard to get used to, to wrap his mind around, that Sam sees the history, lives the history, of everything he touches. Dean’s almost tempted to make Sam prove it, to take something out of the Impala that Sam’s never seen before and have Sam tell him the whole sordid history of the EMF Dean rigged up, or the mixed tape John made two years ago and left under the passenger seat when he took off three weeks ago for South Carolina on a tip. 

Almost tempted but not, because he remembers the wince on Sam’s face last night, the absolute faith and trust in Jess’ eyes, talking about it, and if it’s true, like Dean thinks it is, he can’t do that to his brother. 

The streets are quiet this early in the morning, the smell of coffee and bagels wafting out from coffee shops already open, the smell of breakfast food leaking from a couple smaller restaurants filled with businessmen and bohemians alike. People are moving, the neighbourhood is waking up, and Dean follows Sam around what feels like a complex route, in and out of the busier streets, through a few alleys, past some kind of yoga centre. 

They walk the last mile, back to the apartment, and Sam says hello to some of the people they pass, exchanges conversation with them that sounds normal, average, casual and everyday. 

“No one says anything about the gloves?” Dean asks quietly, under his breath, after Sam’s just wished a man wearing a suit and a tie, carrying a briefcase, a good morning. 

“This is the Haight,” Sam says with a smile, as if that’s an answer. Apparently it’s good enough for everyone else, so Dean doesn’t push. 

They go into a small café a few doors down from the bookstore, Sam ducking in the doorway and around a string of bells, Dean following close behind, wary after seeing the pentacle painted in the lower left hand corner of the window, the runes of protection carved in the doorframe. 

“Hey, Sam!” the guy behind the counter calls out, waving, and a few of the others sitting down look up from whatever frothy drink they’re drinking and the papers they’re reading to say hello as well. 

Sam smiles, greets them back, calls each one by name, and Dean suddenly feels guilty about why he’s here, feels guilty to be tearing Sam away from these people that obviously like him, from this life that he obviously loves. He watches as Sam leans against the counter, arms crossed, hands firmly at his side, hip jutting, foot tapping, and Dean swallows, feels longing like chalk dry his mouth to sand. 

“The normal for you and Jess?” the counter-guy asks. 

“Yeah, and Zach and Becky collapsed at ours last night, so an extra café mocha and one triple shot cappuccino.” Sam pauses, tilts his head for Dean to come closer, and when Dean does, Sam says, “This is my brother, Dean. He takes his strong, black, and pure.” Sam stops, looks at Dean, eyebrow raised, as if to say, ‘ _That’s still right, isn’t it?_ ’

“Nice to meet you,” Dean says. “Strong, black, and pure. Sludge, if you have it.” 

Counter-guy laughs, says, “I’m Ren, Dean, and it’s nice to meet you, ‘f only ‘cause I haven’t met another sludge-drinker for a long time. All these froufrou drinks these days, y’know?” 

Sam rolls his eyes, says, “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Tease all you want, but I got the girl, didn’t I?” and then stops in the middle of his merriment, looks down, says in a more subdued tone, “Think we could get breakfast as well?” 

“Breakfast as well,” Ren replies, giving Sam, and then Dean, a curious, half-worried look. “All veggie? No, I think Dean’s a carnivore,” he drawls as he taps one finger against his cheek, pretending to study Dean. “Four veg, one meat?” 

Dean gives Ren a thumbs up, and as the guy moves, gets out five of the biggest cups, he elbows Sam, doesn’t do more than look around, wondering if Sam’ll get the question or if their silent understanding has been lost, lost to the type Sam shares with Jess now. 

“A few years. Longer than I’ve been here,” Sam says, and Dean relaxes, relieved. “Ren came into the shop about a week after I started working there, introduced himself, joked around a little. I come in here most mornings after a run, unless I’m teaching later or we’re expecting a big shipment. He’s for real, too.” 

Dean looks around again, murmurs, “And the pentacles? The runes?” 

Sam smiles, but it’s a tight expression, eyes clouded with worry. “Ren’s sister’s a witch,” he says, and Dean gets it, feels goosebumps break out on his arms and back.

“Oi, Winchester,” Ren says, behind them, and both Sam and Dean turn, in sync. Ren laughs, shakes his head as Sam blushes and Dean scratches the back of his head, and says, “Coffee’s ready. I’ll have one of the girls drop off the food in ten. Capisce?”

Sam takes three of the cups, juggles them in his hands until they’re balanced, and as he’s walking out, Dean already outside, waiting, turns back and says, “Ren, you are the _least_ Italian man I have _ever_ met. Seriously, _capisce?_ ” 

They leave before Ren can say anything in response, though a chorus of laughter follows them down the street. 

\--

Jess is awake, in the kitchen, and the television’s on low, tuned to a local morning show. She looks freshly showered, hair piled in wet tendrils on her head, wearing a worn t-shirt and a pair of jeans that cling to her hips and flare out around a pair of sandals. She turns when she hears them, goes over and takes one of the coffees out of Sam’s hands, inhales deeply and winces. 

“This is Dean’s,” she says, puts it on the kitchen table, and reaches for more. 

Dean watches as Sam smiles, puts down the other two cups he’s holding, pushes one loose strand of hair out of Jess’ face and behind her ear. “Dean’s got yours,” he murmurs, and then asks, “Zach and Becks awake yet? Don’t they have class in a couple hours?” 

“I was just getting ready to, Dean, go ahead and put those on the table, to wake them,” Jess says, and Dean does as directed, Sam nods. 

“Someone’ll be bringing breakfast by in a few minutes,” Sam says, and opens the cabinet, reaches for the aspirin without thinking. 

Dean’s picked up his coffee, is looking over the lid at Jess, sees when she realises, when she fishes the key out of her back pocket and looks at it, looks at Sam. She elbows him aside, takes out the prescription bottle and counts, tilts her head up to Sam when she’s done, and the smile blooming on her face makes Dean look away. 

“I just took a few aspirin,” Sam mutters, and then Dean hears the sound of kissing, of Jess breathing into his brother’s mouth, of hands shifting, pulling tighter, closer. 

He takes his coffee, sits down on the couch, and watches TV, leaning back in to the cushions as Sam bustles around the kitchen, Jess wakes up the other two, and ten minutes later, when there’s a knock downstairs, Dean’s the first one across the apartment, first one down the steps. 

Sam comes thumping down the stairs a moment later; Dean can feel the heat radiating from his younger brother. Dean opens the door and gives the woman holding five plates of food a surprised look. 

She looks puzzled, seeing Dean, but then flicks her eyes above Dean's right shoulder, looks relieved even as she tenses a little. "Sam, hey. Rennie told me to bring these over: four regular and one non, right?" 

"Leah, this is Dean," Sam says, almost reluctantly, as Dean holds his hands out, takes two of the plates and steps aside, lets Sam balance the other three. "My brother."

Her eyes widen a bit as she looks Dean up and down, sizing him up, evidently pleased with what she sees. She gives Dean a smile far too smoky for this early in the morning, says, "Pleasure to meet you, Dean."

"Pleasure's all mine," Dean says, returning the look and the tone. Sam shifts behind him, and Dean's grin widens, some part of him hoping that seeing Dean flirt hurts Sam as much as seeing someone wearing Sam's ring hurts Dean. "I might be wrong, but I thought I saw you in the park yesterday. Little girl and a dog?" 

"Yeah, that was me," Leah says, tilting her head, as if she's trying to place Dean. It's evident the moment she does; she snaps her fingers, nods a couple times. "You were the one sleeping under the tree, right? My daughter wake you up?"

Dean shakes his head, winks at Leah. "Not at all, and if she had? I wouldn't've minded." 

Sam clears his throat, drawing Leah's attention, and she gives Sam, then Dean, the same sort of curious look that Ren had, as if she's trying to work something out, trying to put together a puzzle she's only got half the pieces for. 

"You all enjoy breakfast," she says, and adds, "Nice to meet you, Dean," before walking away. 

Dean turns to Sam, is about to ask what the hell the cockblocking is all about, but can't, not when he sees fire and resignation both in Sam's eyes. It's enough to make Dean shiver, start heading upstairs with two steaming plates in his hands.

“What was that all about?” Dean asks, hearing Sam walk up the steps behind him. Sam doesn’t say anything, so once Dean’s in the kitchen, Jess helping them with the plates, he asks again. 

Jess gives Sam a look, Dean doesn’t know what it means, but when Sam answers it with, “Ren sent Leah over,” Jess backs away from Sam and stiffens, goes to the window and leans out, looking. 

“What? What’s so bad about Leah?” Dean asks again, and Zach walks in, scratching his stomach, Becky following him a moment later. 

“Oh, the bitch brought food from Ren, _awesome_ ,” Zach says, eyes opening a bit wider, and he sits down heavily at the table, nodding thanks when Sam passes him the bottle of aspirin. 

Becky sits down across from Zach, eyes flicking from her brother to Sam to Dean, and takes a sip of coffee. 

“You two might not remember,” Jess says, flitting in and out of everyone, “but this is Dean,” and when she sees everyone has forks, something to drink and aspirin for hangovers, she perches on Sam’s knee, picks at his plate in lieu of digging in to her own. 

Dean smiles, meets Zach’s gaze head on, gives Becky a restrained grin, and says, “Hey,” before taking a bite of the lightest, fluffiest eggs he’s ever eaten. He looks down at his plate, gives it a considering glance as he takes in the omelette, strewn with cheese and ham, bits of bacon and some kind of herb. “This is good,” he says, realises he sounds almost surprised. 

Becky laughs, says, “The veggie ones are better; not many of Ren’s customers eat meat, so he spends less time on the meat plate.” 

“Half surprised Leah didn’t stay,” Zach mutters, “someone else who likes the taste of flesh,” and the atmosphere chills. 

Jess’ fork hovers above Sam’s plate, green peppers and onions dangling from the prongs, and it takes Sam rubbing her back to get her moving again. She puts the fork down, stands up, and leaves, saying that she’s not hungry, to save her plate for later. 

Once she’s gone, Zach looks at Sam and says, “Shit, dude, I’m _sorry_. I didn’t mean to bring the mood down.” 

“It’s all right,” Sam says, stands up and covers his plate along with Jess’, puts them in the fridge. 

“Someone wanna tell me what it is about Leah that has you all,” Dean begins to ask, finishes his question by waving his fork around. 

Zach and Becky exchange glances and focus their attention on their food, so Dean turns his attention to Sam, who’s leaning against the counter, arms crossed, gloves on the countertop behind him. Dean blinks, studies his brother’s hands—they don’t look that different, hard to believe they possess the gift Sam and Jess say they do—and jumps when Sam speaks. 

“Leah is Ren’s sister,” Sam says quietly, and trains his gaze on Dean. 

Dean’s eyes narrow as he sorts through that, and when it clicks, he straightens, lets his eyes narrow further. Sam nods, just once, and Dean sighs. “Well, damn. Seriously?” he asks, just to be sure, trying to reconcile the image of the woman downstairs, wearing _pink_ , for crying out loud, with a witch, one who follows the oldest rites, if Dean’s understanding Zach’s comment about flesh the right way.

“Sacrifices and everything,” Sam says. 

“ _Damn,_ ” Dean says again, and tucks right back into his omelette. Zach and Becky look at him, as if Dean should be reacting some other way, but when Dean looks up a minute later, taking a sip of his coffee, Sam’s grinning. 

\--

The Warrens leave an hour later, clomping down the steps and yelling loudly as a cab waits for them out front. Sam leans out of the kitchen window and tells them to get a life, tugging his gloves back on as he does so, the dishes done. Zach yells something back, and Jess laughs. 

She’s dressed to go out, hair done in loose pigtail braids, wearing a Stanford hoodie over her t-shirt and sneakers instead of the sandals. A bookbag’s waiting at the top of the steps, leaned against the landing’s ledge, and she’s taking out a bottle of water, a wrapped sandwich, from the fridge, leaning over and giving the top of Sam’s head a kiss. 

“Have a good day, all right?” she says, and after Sam’s muttered something, she says, more quietly, “Think about what I said.” Sam looks up at her, completely serious, and kisses each one of her eyelids, followed by the tip of her nose, and then her lips. It looks like a ritual, almost, one carefully but meaningfully followed, and Dean feels left out, again, of this home, these people’s lives, as if he’s stepped into a church and gotten lost in the order of service. 

“Be safe,” Sam says.

Jess ruffles his hair, gives Dean a blinding smile, and says, “Stick around, and I’ll take you down to the wharf tonight for dinner while Sam’s in class. You like fish?” 

“If you’re there? Love it,” Dean says, and is rewarded by a laugh from Jess and Sam’s rolling eyes. 

\--

It’s quiet after Jess leaves, and the tension in the kitchen increases, fraction by fraction, until Dean almost can’t breathe. It’s uncomfortable to sit in, almost impossible to sit _still_ in, so he gets up, takes his plate to the sink, looks out the window as he asks, “Do you know why I’m here?” 

He thinks it’s a ridiculous question, there’s no way Sam could know, and then Sam says, “It’s something about the demon, isn’t it,” like he really does know. 

Chills run up and down Dean’s spine, the kind he hasn’t had since meeting his first demon-possessed child, and he says, “Yeah. It’s about the demon.” 

Sam sighs, stands up, and clears the table of empty coffee cups, puts the aspirin away, staring a little too intently into the cabinet before closing it, and as he heads for the sink, he brushes against Dean. It’s just a little contact, the back of Sam’s hand against Dean’s upper arm, and Sam flinches away, apologies already on Dean’s lips, except then Sam’s looking at Dean, eyes wide, and Dean doesn’t know what Sam picked up. 

“What?” he asks, standing straighter, ready to explain away anything Sam saw, ready to get his brother something, anything. Sam doesn’t immediately say anything, so Dean asks again. “What? What did you see?” 

“Nothing,” Sam murmurs, and reaches behind him for a chair, sits down as if he’s still dazed. 

Dean shakes his head, says, “No, c’mon, tell me, Sam.” 

“I didn’t see anything,” Sam says, voice full of wonder and something that sounds like pain, heart-deep and sick, echoes of loneliness and fear around the edges. “Not a thing.” He laughs and Dean winces, steps closer, hand outstretched. Sam flinches back and shakes his head, looks at Dean and says, voice wiped clean of emotion, of anything and everything, “Don’t touch me, Dean. Please.” 

Dean, never able to resist his brother, stops mid-stride and lets his hand fall to his side. 

Sam sits there, rests his elbow on the table, rubs his eyes and lets his head rest in his hand for a long moment before saying, “You know what, fuck it,” and standing up, crossing the kitchen in four angry steps to open up the cabinet with the pill bottles. He takes one out, opens it, and tosses a tablet in his hand, and then stops. 

Dean watches as Sam looks at the tablet, takes a step forward when Sam seems frozen, and then takes a step back as Sam slams the bottle down on the counter, dumps the tablet back in, and jams the lid on. 

“What’s with you and that bottle, man?” Dean asks, and though the words are light, the tone’s cautious. He expects Sam to blow up at him, has seen these kinds of temper tantrums before, but instead of yelling, throwing things, Sam turns around, sinks down to sit on the ground, back sliding against the lower cabinets, shirt riding up as he moves. Dean watches, fixes his eyes on the skin he can see, tan and glowing, remembers the feel of that skin under his hands, covered with blood. 

“I’m an addict,” Sam breathes, looking at his hands, and Dean follows his brother’s gaze, sees Sam’s hands shaking. He’s so intent on watching Sam tremble that he misses the words, has to have Sam repeat himself because he has to have heard wrong. “I’m addicted.” 

Dean collapses to the floor in a pile of limbs, sits cross-legged and looks at Sam, eyes wide, gentle, and says, “Tell me.” It worked when Sam was little, the eyes, the tone, the focus; it stopped working when Sam hit his first round of bullseyes with a crossbow, but Sam looks more like a child right now than ever, despite the miles and miles of legs he has, the toned bulk of his muscles everywhere. Dean focuses on that, on Sam’s hands, instead of the words, the way they’re making him feel, bile rising up in his throat, dizzy and ill. 

“When I was sick,” Sam whispers. “When I was sick, I had headaches. Awful headaches, and they never stopped, even when I got better. The doctors gave me pain pills, really strong ones, with all of these refills, and I never stopped taking them. It was the only time the headaches went away.” 

Sam shudders, goes on. “They keep giving me new prescriptions, because it’s the only thing that helps, and I’ve never told them. Jess found out, caught me. She keeps track, makes sure I don’t take too many, won’t let me refill the bottles until I’m supposed to.”

Dean blinks, doesn’t dare move, because Sam’s staring at his hands, through them, lost in his own private confession, and Dean wants to hear this, _needs_ to hear this, from beginning to end. 

“The headaches, they’ve been getting worse, and I’ve been starting to pick things up through the gloves. I don’t understand. I don’t know why I can touch Jess and no one else,” and then Sam looks at Dean, adds, “except you.” Sam looks lost as he adds, “Why you two, and no one else? It doesn’t make sense.” 

Unsure whether to be offended or to take that as an underhanded compliment, Dean merely says, “Maybe it’s because you love us, Sam,” and watches as his brother comes back to reality, clenches his jaw, whitens and turns away. 

The moment’s lost, Dean knows it and, judging from the way Sam’s fingers are digging into his thighs, Sam knows it, too. 

“Why are you here, Dean?” 

Rather than argue, Dean allows the change in subject and answers, “Dad got a tip from another hunter working a demonic possession in the Carolinas. The demon, _our_ demon, it’s gonna be taking another mother in a few days, somewhere in the Midwest. Dad sent me to get you; he’s expecting us there. Thinks we can get rid of it once and for all.” 

“A gun,” Sam says, lips pursed as if he’s remembering something. “A few hunters over the centuries have talked about a gun, I think. Some said it was an old sword from the church that got melted down.” 

“A Colt,” Dean says, shifting a little, moving his ass to keep it from getting numb on the wooden floorboards. “Made for hunters. We’ve been looking for it for a while, turns out one of Dad’s old buddies hiding in the mountains had it all along. It’ll work, and Dad said something about finding a binding ritual as well, just to be sure. He wanted you there, Sam. Wants you there.” 

Sam scoffs and looks away. “He tell you that or are you making it up?” 

Dean sighs, shifts again, cracks his knuckles. “You’re just as stubborn as he is, you know that?” he says, and when Sam glares at him, Dean says, “The night you two had that fight? He came back, Sam, ‘bout an hour after you took off. Came back sober and feeling like shit ‘cause of all the things he said to you. He wanted to go after you; I convinced him not to, said you just needed some space.” 

“Some space?” Sam asks, incredulous. “Some _space_? Oh, I bet that was fucking convenient, wasn’t it? Blaming it on Dad, when it was.” Sam stops, scowls, says, “I bet he still thinks I left because he told me to, nothing else, right? Or did you ever tell him what happened?” 

Dean licks his lips, swallows, says, “No. I never told him,” in a low, quiet voice. 

The words hang in silence for a long moment, and then Sam says, almost as if he’s putting aside their argument, the fight they’ve breached the surface of but have in no way actually had, “I can’t go with you.” 

“Dude,” Dean says, and then Sam cuts him off, shaking his head, ridiculously long bangs flopping into Sam’s eyes, hiding them from Dean. 

“I can’t, Dean. I can’t leave, and there’s no way I’m bringing Jess into this. I have classes, to take and to teach, and there’s work, and, and other things here. I can’t go with you.” 

Dean looks at his brother, says, “Can’t means won’t, Sammy. You won’t come?” 

Sam stands up, shakes his hair out of his eyes, and doesn’t meet Dean’s gaze as he replies, “Feel free to shower before you leave, and take some food if you want. It’s mostly vegetarian or vegan, but there’s some chocolate hidden in the back of the drawer under the sink. My cell number’s on the wall. Tell Dad. Tell Dad I’m sorry, okay?” 

Dean watches as Sam swipes up his pair of gloves, puts them on, and disappears downstairs, hears the click of the door a moment later. He can’t believe Sam left, just like that, can’t believe Sam’s not going, doesn’t want to be there when this demon goes down.

Still, as Dean stands, heads for the bathroom in something of a daze, he thinks maybe this is a good thing. Maybe this is what Sam really wants, to be normal, to not have to worry about demons and hunting and family getting killed with every new monster that pops up out of the woodwork. Maybe it’ll be good, to have Sam here, where they know he’s all right, to know that Sam’s happy, got a girl and good people around him, likes his life for once. 

Dean kicks the bathroom door open, switches on the light, and then pauses, steps back out into the hallway. The door to Sam and Jess’ bedroom is half-open, and Dean can’t resist, so he walks over, looking behind him to make sure the apartment’s empty, habit, really, even knowing he’s the only one there. 

He pushes the door open with his elbow, looks around it first, and then opens it the rest of the way, stepping in and flicking on the light switch. The bed’s the first thing to draw his attention, sitting low to the ground, more like a futon, and taking up one corner of the room, covered by a soft-blue comforter. There are plants everywhere, hanging from the ceiling, in vases on a large, floor-to-ceiling window ledge, stacked in planters on the floor and on the tops of waist-high bookcases and a long dresser. Yellow curtains are fluttering in a breeze that the half-open window lets in, and a wind chime of pentacles clangs lazily, spins in hypnotising circles. 

Hanging above the bed is a mobile, cut-outs of the moon in different stages, a pattern of circles and crescents that Dean can almost _see_ covered by spells. There are red and white candles scattered about the room, some on the bookcases, half full of books that look old, half full of books that look like college texts. A small bowl of water sits on the dresser, right in the middle, the rest of the top covered in ornately inscribed and runed boxes, some open, full of nail polish and makeup and spare sets of gloves, some closed. 

“Huh,” Dean says, and steps in further. 

It’s at once the most balanced and the creepiest room he’s ever been in. All of the elements are present, everything that makes him think that Jess is a very devout Wiccan, but at the same time, there’s something just a little off, something that he can’t put his finger on. 

He walks to the window, sees salt lines and smells sage sachets, turns around and sees pentagrams etched into the doorframe, almost every piece of wood. As he’s frowning, looking at the painting above the bed, it hits him. There’s a _painting_ above the bed, not a crucifix. Dean looks around, tries to see anything that reminds him of Christianity, and finds absolutely nothing. 

Feeling his heart start to race, he goes back out in to the hallway, searches the living room, the kitchen, and still, finds nothing. No crucifixes, no rosaries, not even any simple crosses. 

Dean tears the place apart, and when he finds nothing, he rifles through his duffel, takes out the two crucifixes he always carries with him, and props one up on top of the microwave, the other in the bathroom. His rosary gets hung on the doorknob to Sam and Jess’ room, and Dean leaves, still feeling his skin crawl, because everyone they knew used to tease Sam, used to say he was going to grow up and become a priest, and if Sam hasn’t recanted the Christianity he grew up in, he’s definitely drifted away from it. 

“Jess is hot, man, but that’s no excuse to stop watching your back,” he mutters, throwing his duffel in the trunk. He looks up once more at the apartment windows, swears he can hear the wind chimes even down here, over the noise of the neighbourhood as it fills up with locals and tourists, and then drives away, in the direction of America’s Midwest. 

\--

He calls John once he hits the state line, leaves a message on his father’s voice mail. Dean gets five miles down the road, barely halfway through one AC/DC song, and then his phone’s ringing. He looks at the caller ID first, turns down the music so he can say, “Hey, Dad,” and know his father’s hearing him, not Brian Johnson. 

The connection isn’t that great, Dean wonders where John’s at, but the words come through just fine. “You find your brother?” 

“Yes, sir. But he’s not coming.” 

There’s a long pause, silence filled with words Dean can hear loud and clear, and then John says, “He’s not coming. You told him about everything?”

The way John sounds, Dean doesn’t get upset, doesn’t resent the question. “Yes, sir,” he says again. “Told him everything. He’s still not coming. Has other things he needs to do. Has a girl,” he adds after a moment, as if that changes everything. Judging from the silence, it goes a long way towards it. 

John eventually sighs. “Missouri. The state, not the psychic. There’s a place called Eldon, on Highway 54, and an even smaller town just south of that. The demon’ll be there in three days. I’ve reserved a couple rooms at the motel in town. I’ll call someone else. We’ll talk more when you get here.” 

The call ends, and Dean tosses his phone on the passenger side, lets it bounce around the seat before it settles, wedged between seat cushion and seat back. AC/DC gets turned up, and as Dean starts making his way through Nevada, he deafens his ears in hopes it’ll deafen his brain, all of the questions he has and suspicions he doesn’t want to admit to. 

\--

John’s truck’s sitting in front of the last room, and parked right next to it is an old Buick that has Dean shaking his head. He parks, grabs his duffel and favourite gun, and can’t help smiling when he walks in and sees Jim sitting against one of the bed’s headboards, fingers absently scurrying down the crinkly page of an old and probably dusty text. 

Jim smiles back, tilts his head in a gesture he probably learnt in seminary and never shook off, but his grip reads like Marines, like Vietnam and things no man should ever see. “Good to see you, Dean,” he says, and part of Dean relaxes, eases down, being around the priest. 

“You too, Pastor Jim.” Dean slings his duffel down, jumps on the other bed, testing the springs, laying down and staring up at the ceiling, the water stain in the corner, realises there’s a lump right under his lower back. Before he can shift, a bottle lands on the bed next to his hand, and Dean reaches, picks it up and studies it. “Holy water,” he says, and sits up, looking at his father. 

John nods, eyes distant, troubled. “We’ll use the binding ritual Jim’s going over, the gun, and the water. Hopefully if one isn’t enough by itself, the combination’ll see us through. Good trip?” 

Jim looks from father to son, closes the book carefully and says, “Seems to me there were cookies in the lobby when we checked in. I’ll see if there are any left,” before he leaves. John makes a move as if to say that the priest can stay, but Jim smiles, shakes his head, and closes the door softly behind him. 

“What’d Sam say?” John asks, no preamble. 

Dean shifts on the bed, pulls up one knee to his chest and lets the other leg dangle off the bed. “I told him you wanted him here. He, he didn’t really believe me, but he said he couldn’t leave. He said to tell you he was sorry, but he didn’t want to bring his girlfriend into this, didn’t want to skip out on his classes or anything.”

John nods, not like he agrees, but like he’s listening, and he asks, “The girl, she’s a good one? How much has Sammy told her?” 

“She’s a Wiccan, decent enough,” Dean says with a shrug. “Hot, and she knows her way around a pentacle, isn’t scared off by our kind of thing. Something odd, though,” he adds, and John raises an eyebrow. “Nothing Christian in their apartment. I left a couple crucifixes, a rosary.” 

“And your brother?” John asks a moment later, voice gruff. “How’s Sam?” 

Dean scratches the back of his head, looks away and lets out this little laugh, almost sheepish. “He’s, uh. He wears a lot of gloves, these days.” John just looks at him. “To keep from touching things. His girl, Jess, says Sam’s clairvoyant.” John looks frozen, just staring now, and it’s starting to make Dean a little uncomfortable. “When he touches things, he sees their history, their present. Nothing future, but Jess said something about Sam reading patterns or something, I didn’t get a chance to talk to them about it.”

John sits down, slowly, and says, “Sam’s clairvoyant. That’s all, there’s nothing else he can do?” 

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not as surprised by this as I was?” Dean asks, and when John tells him to sit down, Dean does. 

\--

Jim comes back in sometime when John’s telling Dean that there are other children out there, others like Sam, with gifts, all of them connected to the demon. Dean’s frozen, mind and body both, trying to understand, but it’s all going right over his head. Sam was _chosen_ for something, to be this demon’s weapon in some war? There’s no way, that just does not jive with the image Dean has in his head, Sam who grew up hunting demons, who’s a vegetarian with a puppy and a job in a bookstore, whose clairvoyance was inborn and then somehow switched off for two decades while the demon—

Dean stops, shakes his head. “That can’t be right,” he says, interrupting his father. John and Jim both look at him. “That can’t be right,” he says again. “Sam was sick a month after he went out there and the headaches started coming right away. He wasn’t nineteen before he had his first vision, there’s no way. They’ve been getting stronger, but he had them before he turned twenty.”

Jim frowns, looks at John, and when John nods and sighs, turns away, Jim says, “Well, then. Perhaps the clairvoyance did come from the fever, and Sam has another gift that’s only just now unlocking itself.”

“Or the pattern broke with Sam for some reason,” Dean says, and he sees his father wince, as if that’s the worst news any of them could get. Dean’s not sure why, knows better than to ask, seeing the look in John’s eyes. 

“Either way, the son of a bitch is going down,” John says, firm and unyielding. 

Jim and Dean both nod.


	3. Chapter 3

They’ve broken in to the family’s house, and when the demon comes, Jim traps it with the binding spell while Dean gets the mother and kid out of the way. The demon’s taunting them all, but it’s trapped, so John waits until Dean comes back, like this is a family thing, watching this demon die for once and for all. 

Dean’s not quite back in the kid’s nursery when he hears the demon talking about Sam, and his blood runs cold. 

“…always too late, John. Think Sammy’ll forgive you for this one? Seeing his fiancée like that, knowing you could’ve come after me months ago?”

“Shoot, Dad,” Dean murmurs, coming up behind his father, and the demon actually flinches as Dean gets close enough to douse the thing in holy water. 

A bang as the bullet leaves the gun and hits the demon, then a hiss of smoke and flames, and Dean’s left feeling like he’s just missed something huge. His eyes flick to Jim and then John, and John says, “Call your brother.” 

It’s an order, no way or reason to resist, so Dean reaches in his back pocket for his telephone and his fingers close around something else. He frowns, pulls out a pentagram carved from a block of redwood, fingers slipping in the hollow spaces, and gets a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach as the slow slip-slide of magic runs under his fingers. Sam’s initials are etched along one part of the circular edge, followed by his phone number, and Dean’s frown gets deeper, brows pulling together as he takes out his phone and dials Sam’s cell. 

It rings and rings, three times, four, five, and then Dean gets directed to voice mail. He leaves a quick message, nothing more than, “It’s done,” and when he hangs up, he turns the carving over, and freezes. 

_Come back. Hurry._

He looks up at his father and asks, “What’d the demon say?” 

“Demons lie,” Jim murmurs, the sound quiet, barely audible over the whine of approaching emergency vehicles. 

“What did it say?” Dean asks again, but John shakes his head, says they need to get out of there before the firefighters and police arrive. 

\--

Back at the motel, Dean asks again, hands his father the pentagram. 

John studies it, runs his fingers across the message, as if he has the same gift that Sam does, and when he’s done, he passes it to Jim. Jim reads the message and the number both, looks up at them and shrugs. 

“This might be Sam’s other gift,” Jim says. “Precognition? It fits well with the other aspects.”

John’s jaw clenches, then unclenches, and as Jim tosses the carving back to Dean, John says, “Better do what he says. Get back there, see what’s going on. The demon,” he says, then pauses, searches for words. “The demon said something about Jess, about getting to her before we got to it. If it did, if it was actually telling the truth,” and Dean’s blood runs cold. 

He doesn’t stop for his clothes, just hightails it out of the motel room and to his car, peals out on to the road and doesn’t look back. 

\--

Dean drives past the apartment, sees that the bedroom’s been gutted, black smoke staining the front of the building. The shop’s been emptied of books, but there are shadows moving around inside, so Dean stops the Impala right under a sign that says, _No Parking,_ and gets out, walks up to the door and knocks. The door’s open, slips free of the latch under his knuckles, and a man, an older guy with wild, curly hair and bloodshot eyes, looks up from a stack of paperwork.

“I’m sorry, we’re closed for the time being,” he says, and takes a pair of thin wire-rimmed glasses off of the end of his nose. 

“M’name’s Dean, and I’m Sam’s brother. Is he around?” Dean asks.

The man straightens up, looks Dean over, and, after a moment, says, “Sam’s brother, hmm? I’m Paul, Jess’ father.” He stops, takes a deep breath and forces a smile out. “I was Jess’ father.” 

Dean’s heart stops as he whispers, “You _were_?” The fire, the demon, the bedroom, the taunt about Sam seeing her, it all comes together and he sways on his feet, feeling like he’s coming unglued. 

Paul moves around the table quickly, takes Dean by the elbow and steadies him, as Dean’s thinking of Jess, the way she smiled and laughed, the looks she gave his brother, the shine of her hair in the sun-drenched kitchen and the way she was as tall as him, even in flats. 

“She died, two nights ago,” Paul says, voice thick, choked, as he looks tired but even, no trace of anything other than fatigue on his face, though the bruised colour under his eyes speaks of long, sleepless hours of mourning. “There was a fire in their bedroom. Sam almost didn’t get out in time.” 

“Where is he?” Dean breathes, and he shakes his head, puts aside the grief and guilt he’s starting to feel for Jess, the way she died, the way she burned up alongside Sam’s dreams. “Where’s my brother?” 

Paul looks around the shop, sighs. “I’ll take you over there. I can’t, I’ve been here too long.” 

\--

“I’m sorry,” Dean finally says, after twenty minutes in the car, nothing to break up the silence except for Paul’s directions. “I don’t, didn’t,” he corrects himself, “know her that well, but she seems, _seemed_ , like a good kid. Friendly.”

Paul hums, looks out of the window, and tells Dean to turn left, turn right, turn right, and then they’re in the parking lot of a hospital. Dean’s foot can’t seem to find the gas pedal, and he’s staring at the building for a long minute before Paul says, “I should’ve said, I mean, you probably thought,” and gives up. 

Dean shakes himself out of his thoughts and parks the car, follows Paul inside, the fingers of one hand tapping impatiently on his thigh as they walk through the hospital, take an elevator up a couple flights of stairs. 

There’s no one else in the elevator, so as the lights ding over from ‘2’ to ‘3,’ Dean clears his throat, asks, “What’s wrong with him?” 

“He tried to pull her out,” Paul says, quiet, nearly blank. “He’s burned, and they had to sedate him.” The lights on the panel ding from ‘4’ to ‘5’ and Paul adds, barely audible, “He wouldn’t stop screaming.” 

The doors open, and Paul blinks, pulling himself out of whatever trance he’d just been in, and gives Dean a tired smile before heading left down a long, sterile hallway. 

Dean follows, not meeting the eyes of anyone they pass, trying to hide how much he hates hospitals, how much more than that he hates the thought of Sam being in one. 

They come to a closed door, and Paul hesitates, steps to one side and gestures. “I’ll wait out here,” he says. “Let me know when it’s all right to come in.”

Dean nods, swallows, and opens the door, steps inside. It’s a private room, that much to be thankful for, and the curtain around Sam’s bed is pulled closed. Dean grabs hold of one corner and steadies himself, because the smell of this ultra-clean room has grown heavy with a different kind of scent now, and pulls the curtain back, every ounce of blood in his body running cold and thickening to ice when he sees Sam. 

Sam, his little brother, looking so pale and drawn. Dean steps closer, can’t _not_ , and he hovers at the edge of Sam’s bed before sitting down in case his legs give out. Sam’s hands and arms are covered in bandages, his cheeks look sunburnt, and his hair’s greasy and lying limp on the pillow, ends singed, uneven. Worse than that, Sam’s wrists are strapped down to the bed, just like his ankles, and there’s a steady drip of something going straight into Sam’s veins. 

“Hey, little brother,” Dean says. “I’m here, okay? Got your message, came back as fast as I could. When you wake up, you need to tell me if you read a pattern about this happening or if you saw it, and why you didn’t stop it.” He stops, closes his eyes for a moment and looks away, purses his lips. “You gotta wake up, okay, Sammy?” and he leans back in his chair, settles in for a while. 

\--

Paul comes in half an hour later, stands at the foot of Sam’s bed and stares at Dean’s brother for a few minutes in silence. 

When there’s a knock on the door, both of them jump and turn, and a woman comes in with her hair in a long braid down her back, wearing a white coat. She smiles at Paul and turns to Dean with a question in her eyes. “I’m Dr. Morrell. You are?” 

“Dean, Sam’s older brother. Does he have to be tied down like that?” 

The doctor’s lips press together, thin and white for a moment, until she says, “It’s done in Sam’s best interests. When he was brought in by the EMTs, he was too out-of-control to administer treatment. In order to get the IVs in to him, we had to restrain him, and even with the morphine drip, he’s been a little,” she pauses, finishes by saying, “aggressive with some of the staff here. He’s been having severe nightmares, as well, and if he’s not restrained when he sleeps, he’s been dislodging his IVs. We’re hoping he’ll be able to go without them tomorrow.” 

Dean swallows, looks down at his brother. People have been touching him, he’s been having nightmares, and Jess is dead. “What’s wrong with him? I mean, what happened?” 

Either the way Dean can’t seem to find words or the tone they’re delivered in makes the doctor soften a bit. She looks at Paul, who nods once, and says, “Firefighters had to drag Sam out of the apartment. He came in with first- and second-degree burns, but they’re healing well. We’re more concerned about Sam’s mental state right now, and possible lung damage from smoke inhalation. He’s been sedated since he arrived and given painkillers, though we were planning on letting him wake up a little this afternoon. Mr. Moore’s listed as one of Sam’s primary contacts, but as you are his next of kin, all decisions regarding his treatment are yours, Mr. Winchester.” 

Dean looks at the doctor, then at his brother, then back up at Jess’ father. “Whatever you two have planned, that’s fine with me. I just, I’m gonna stay.” 

Paul nods, and the doctor gives Dean a half-smile. 

“Of course,” she says. “A nurse will be in to change Sam’s bandages in about an hour.” 

The doctor leaves, and Paul says, “She’s a good doctor, Dean. She treated Sam a few years ago for his meningitis, and she lives a few blocks away from him and—” Paul stops, swallows, and Dean sees the older man’s eyes fill, glisten in the fluorescent light, before he gives Dean a brittle smile. “I’ll be back. My wife will want to meet you; I need to pick her up from work.”

\--

Alone, with only the steady drip of the IVs and the buzz from the machines, the blip-bleep of Sam’s heart monitor and the noises coming from the hallway as people go back and forth, Dean sits next to Sam’s bed. One hand’s on his brother’s ankle, nervous fingers rubbing the skin under the restraint, and he can only look at Sam every so often, feeling guilt and anger bubble under his skin like lava. If he hadn’t left, if they’d moved on the demon earlier, if he’d never come here, if, if, if.

Dean puts his head down on the bed, brushes one finger against the tip of Sam’s, the only unbandaged spot on Sam’s hand, and listens as his brother’s breathing slows, steadies. Dean sits up, frowns, does it again, and watches as tiny pain lines around Sam’s eyes even out, disappear. 

Keeping his fingers pressed against Sam’s hand, Dean puts his head down again, and falls asleep. 

\--

A knock on the door startles him, wakes him up, and he looks up, cracks his neck, as a nurse walks in carrying a tube of something, some clean bandages, a pair of latex gloves. She smiles, looks over at Sam before she says, “I need to change the dressing on his burns. Dr. Morrell gave instructions that you could stay, if you’d like.”

Dean nods, wordless, and the nurse moves to the other side of the bed. She unwinds the bandages slowly, carefully, fingers dexterous in her latex gloves, and Dean feels more sick with every inch of Sam’s skin that he can see. There isn’t any hair on Sam’s arm, and that’s a strange thing to notice, but it takes Dean’s mind off of the red, shiny way Sam’s skin reflects the light, makes it easier to stomach the sight of the blisters. 

Even in his sleep, Sam murmurs in pain, shifts slightly, and Dean presses his hand to the tip of Sam’s finger, unsure whether it’s pain from the ointment the nurse is gently rubbing into Sam’s skin or the fact that she’s touching him and Sam can sense that, is getting feedback of some kind even through the nurse’s gloves. It seems to help, Dean’s touch, so when he has to move, let the nurse get the arm he’s been touching, he goes around to the other side and lays his palm carefully over the tops of the fingers the nurse left poking out of the new bandages. 

“Easiest change yet,” the nurse says when she’s done and leaving. “At this rate, Sam’ll be healed up and gone in no time.” 

Dean sits back down, looks at his brother, and says, “Y’hear that? You’re gonna be fine, Sam. Once you wake up, we’ll get this thing squared away, figure out what’s going on in that crazy head of yours.” 

\--

Paul brings his wife back later in the afternoon, when the sun’s slanting shadows through the window. Jeanette reminds Dean of Jess in the way that some daughters will grow up exactly to look like their mother, even if they’re six inches taller and blonde instead of brunette. Jeanette’s face is wide and open, and even through the sadness in her eyes, Jeanette gives Dean a big hug and says, “It’s so good to finally meet you, Dean. Sam’s told us a lot about you over the years.” 

Dean smiles, awkwardly hugs her back, and doesn’t say anything, because until a few days ago, he had no idea his brother was even living in San Francisco, much less engaged to this couple’s only child. 

The three of them stand around and watch as the doctor gives Sam an injection, turns off one of the IVs. 

“He should be waking up soon,” she says, checking Sam’s chart. “We’ll see if he needs to be sedated again or if we’ll be all right letting him heal naturally from here on out.” 

It’s the longest fifteen minutes of Dean’s life, watching Sam wake up. His brother’s face changes, brow furrowing, eyes clenching tight and then relaxing, as if he’s dreaming, muscles in his arms and legs clenching and relaxing as well. When Sam finally opens his eyes, Dean’s right there, no memory of moving, of putting one hand over Sam’s and squeezing lightly. 

“Dean,” Sam says, and his voice is hoarse, scratched and dry. “Dean, I did everything I could, I swear.” Jeanette, behind him, starts to cry, and Paul wraps his arms around his wife, holds her tight. “Dean, you have to believe me. There was no way, I did everything right, _everything_.” 

“Hey, come on,” Dean says, low and soft. “It’s okay. I know you tried.”

Dr. Morrell comes up on Sam’s other side, brushes his hair out of his eyes, and watches with something approaching professional interest as Sam flinches, as his eyes turn wild, wide with fear. 

“He doesn’t like to be touched,” Dean snaps, and when the doctor draws back, turns to face him, her eyes drop to Dean’s hand over Sam’s. She raises an eyebrow, and Dean sighs, says, holding himself back from saying something he might regret, “I’m sorry. But he doesn’t. It’s a Sam thing.” 

“I’ll make a note of that,” she murmurs, and checks one of the IV drips, turns it down a little. “It might explain some of his reaction to our initial treatment.”

Dean wants to smack her for being so oblivious, but he just swallows and nods, gives her a tight smile and turns his attention back to his brother. “Sam, look at me, okay?” He waits until Sam’s eyes are focused on his, then says, “Don’t panic, but you kept pulling out your IVs. They had to cuff you to the bed. Will you be okay if they take them off?” 

Sam blinks, nods, and doesn’t speak for ten days. 

\--

Dean’s there, sitting next to his brother’s bed, when Paul comes in, smiles and greets Sam like he expects Sam to respond. Maybe he does, Dean doesn’t know, but the silence is really starting to get to him and he’s been saying pretty much anything and everything in order to provoke Sam to talk. The worst he’s gotten has been a sharp look when Dean mentioned Leah three days ago, but most of the time, Sam acts like he doesn’t even hear, like maybe he’s seeing things or just lost in his thoughts. Dean hopes he’s just thinking, because even as emo as that would be, it’s better than Sam having waking visions. 

“We were going through some of the things from the apartment today,” Paul goes on, only a little jar in his voice at the admission, “and found this. Figured it was yours instead of Jess’, so Jeanette thought you’d like to have it back.” 

Paul takes something out of his pocket, and as Sam’s turning a bandaged hand up to catch whatever it is, Dean sees the beads of his rosary drop through the air. He opens his mouth to explain, but stops, as Sam stares down at the rosary and says, “Thank you.” 

Dean looks at Paul, who looks back and gives Dean a half-smile, staying a few minutes longer to tell Sam the latest details about the business, how the clean-up’s going, the latest embarrassing detail going around the neighbourhood about Ren. Sam doesn’t respond to any of it, just keeps staring at the rosary, and Dean’s kicking himself, trying to figure out what Sam might be seeing, wondering what things are going through Sam's mind. 

Once Paul’s gone, Dean scoots his chair a bit closer, says, “Sam? I was worried, man. There wasn’t.” 

Sam cuts him off, asks, “What did you leave?” in a voice so mechanically blank he might as well have written the question instead of asking it. 

“The rosary, a couple crucifixes. Why?” 

“We were completely off the map,” Sam says, shuddering and dropping the rosary. Dean picks it up, lets the beads slip-slide through his fingers. “Jess and I made sure. Our apartment, the shop, there was no way it could find us in there. We were safe. _She_ was safe.”

Dean’s starting to get a bad feeling about this, his stomach roiling. He doesn’t say anything, though, just gives Sam an earnest, ‘ _please tell me more_ ’ look and listens when Sam talks again. 

“There’s power in what Jess believed, Dean. We used it to make the place safe, take it off the radar. Eight sabbats worth of rituals, something different on every esbat, and absolutely nothing related to Christian practices, because they wouldn’t’ve kept out the demon, just let it know where we lived.”

“You’re saying the rosary, the crucifixes,” Dean says, then stops, can’t bring himself to finish his thought, because then that means this is all his fault. Jess’ death is Dean’s fault, he’s responsible, and he wasn’t even in the state when it happened. 

Sam looks down at his hands, the white bandages covering them, and whispers, “I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. I thought I,” and he shakes his head. “If I’d gone home between classes, or stopped in before Jess did, I. Dean, I.” 

“I’m sorry,” Dean breathes. “Sam, I’m sorry.” 

\--

The blisters disappear and Sam’s skin heals up, until it’s just irregularly covered by still-healing, still-red spots. Finally, two and a half weeks after Sam was pushed into the hospital on a gurney, he’s ready to leave. On the morning he gets discharged, Paul and Jeanette are there as well as Dean, all four listening to Dr. Morrell’s directions. 

“So, the cream needs to applied twice a day, and once you can, leave the bandages off. Now that most of the skin is healed, it needs fresh air. Don’t cover the skin at all if you can stand it,” and Sam looks vaguely ill. It takes Dean a minute, but then he’s looking at the doctor, incredulous. 

“Wait, the skin can’t be covered? Not at all?” The doctor’s looking at Dean like he should be ashamed of himself for even asking the question, as if she thinks Dean might be scared of being seen in public with Sam, but all Dean can think about are Sam’s gloves, about how crazy Sam might go if he can’t protect himself from picking up the history of everything he touches, no matter how small or slight the contact. 

“It’s better if it’s not,” she says, giving Dean a look and then flashing an apologetic smile at Sam. “Anyway, we’ll make sure there’s a few refills on the prescription for the cream, and keep using it until they all run out. The more regularly you use it, the better your skin will heal, with as little scarring as possible. I’ve also written new scripts for the painkillers you need with your headaches, and one for a sleeping aid in case of nightmares. Come back if you lose any feeling in the burn regions, and go and see your PCP in a week or two, to check on them. Yes?” 

Sam looks cowed into submission, shoulders tense, up around his ears, but Dean sees the panic in the back of his eyes, in the way Sam’s licking his lips. “Yes, ma’am,” Sam says, and the doctor smiles, reaches over and pats Sam’s shoulder without thinking. Sam doesn’t flinch, holds himself still, but Dean can see the muscles in Sam’s body all tighten, tense, and they don’t relax until the doctor’s stepped back and no one’s touching Sam. 

“I hope I don’t see you for a while, Sam,” Dr. Morrell adds, and when Sam gives her a tight grin and Jess’ parents echo it, she leaves to go make sure the paperwork and the drugs are ready. 

Paul and Jeanette follow her a moment later, saying that they’ll see Sam at home; it hasn’t surprised Dean at all over the past few days, ever since the subject came up, that Jess’ parents would insist Sam stay with them for a while. People seem to love Sam the instant they meet him, want to keep him around when they’d like to see Dean leave just as much. But Jess’ parents, they’ve invited Dean to stay as well, which takes them up a notch in his book. 

“You ready for this?” Dean asks, when it’s just the two of them. “We can take off if you’d like, blow this state and let you heal up somewhere else. Florida’s nice this time of year,” he offers. 

Sam’s smile loosens, looks more natural, as he shakes his head. “That’s all right. Paul said there are some things back at the house I need to look through, see what to keep and what’s okay to get rid of.” It’s not that Sam looks happy about it, but Dean knows what the look Sam’s wearing means, the set of his jaw, and Sam’s only having nightmares every so often now, not constantly. Dean’s not sure how much of that is thanks to the sleeping pills the doctor’s given Sam, but at least Sam looks healthier now, rested.

“Come on, then, Sammy,” Dean says.

Sam stands up, says, “It’s Sam, Dean,” as he waves on his feet, sways. Dean reaches out, steadies his brother without thinking, and Sam tenses at the skin-to-skin contact before it seems like he can stop himself. Sam leans into the touch for a moment before he pulls back, and Dean sighs, pastes a smile on. 

“Doc’s waiting,” he says, and he follows Sam out of the room. 

\--

They stay with Jess’ parents for two weeks, in the Moore’s classy-yet-hippie home in the Upper Haight. Sam spends his days going through the things Paul’s managed to salvage from the apartment, keeping some, throwing other odds and ends away with a shine in his eyes. In the end, Sam fills a small cardboard box full of random things and lets Paul and Jeanette keep the rest. 

Half of everything in that box either has a pentagram on it or is carved in the shape of one, and Dean gets up the nerve to ask his brother about that after he gets back from dealing with a poltergeist across the city one afternoon.

“Protection,” Sam mutters, closing the box and taping it shut. “That and balance. Jess was convinced they would help me with the drugs.” 

Dean pauses, was going to ask about the pentagram he found in his back pocket, but Dean frowns, says instead, “How’ve you been doing with that, anyway?” and his heart misses a beat when Sam looks away, carries the box out of the study. 

“Hey,” he calls out, going after his brother. “Sam, I asked you a question.” 

“I don’t wanna talk about it, Dean,” Sam says

Dean hurries, moves to stand in his brother’s path. Sam stops, sighs, and rolls his eyes, doesn’t look at Dean. “I don’t care if you don’t want to talk about it, Sam. You telling me you’re taking more than you should be?” 

Sam puts the box down on a side table, looks as if he wants to cross his arms but can’t because it would hurt too much. “Look, Dean. Leave it alone, okay? You won’t understand.” 

“Try me,” Dean says, then steps closer, frowns when Sam steps backwards, because he’s not trying to be intimidating and seeing the thinly veiled panic in Sam’s eyes makes something inside of him, something he thought he’d exorcised and is gradually learning he didn’t, ache. “Sam, come on. I know what you’re going through,” and Sam cuts him off, steps closer. 

“You have no idea what I’m going through, Dean,” Sam snarls. “My fiancée is _dead_ , burned to death on the ceiling because of a _demon_. My life has been ruined, I can’t fucking touch anyone or anything because of some stupid gift that didn’t even work to save Jessica’s life, and now my brother wants to drag me back into hunting three years after I tried to get as far away from it as I could.” 

Dean swallows in the face of Sam’s anger, this anger that he knows has been simmering under the surface since Sam opened his eyes in the hospital, this anger that hasn’t been given the chance yet to be expressed. “Tried to get as far away as you could from me, you mean,” he says, quietly, and watches, amazed, as Sam shuts down, swallows his anger, puts on one of the best masks Dean has ever seen. 

“From all of it,” Sam says, and picks up the box, walks around Dean. His arm brushes Dean’s, and Sam’s rhythm falters, but he keeps moving. 

Dean turns around, watches Sam leave, the play of muscles under those still-red arms, under the thin t-shirt that still vaguely smells of smoke and ash, the way Sam’s hair curls at the bottom of his neck, seemingly still soot-darkened. 

“You’re a stubborn bitch, Sam,” Dean calls out. 

He’s answered by silence.

\--

The atmosphere in the house grows tenser as the first week turns into the second. Sam’s not talking to Dean about anything, much less his visions or the drugs, no matter how annoyingly persistent Dean gets—and he’s good at being annoyingly persistent. Even Paul and Jeanette are starting to think that all’s not right between the brothers. 

Sam’s still jogging every morning, though Dean thinks he’s not going for the long runs he used to. Sam comes back looking exhausted, wheezing a bit, all of his skin bright red, and disappears into the bathroom, doesn’t come out for an hour. 

Dean eventually just leaves one afternoon, after another non-fight with Sam, his brother sitting in the Moore’s back room, whittling away another pentagram out of a block of some kind of dark wood and ignoring Dean. 

He drives, doesn’t have a destination in mind but ends up at the same park he was at before he ran into Jess and Becky. Dean parks, gets out and goes to the same tree, sits underneath it, and tries to think. He’s not usually one for nature, not like this, but being in the same house with Sam now is like being in the same motel room with Sam and John fighting, and Dean just can’t take one more second of it.

Dean shifts once he realises he’s sitting on something uncomfortable, something that’s digging into his ass, but even once he’s moved, it’s still poking him. He sits up enough to reach in his back pocket and pull out another carved pentagram, Sam’s initials etched into the side he’s looking at. He turns it over, frowning, and reads the message. 

_Don’t eat the food._

“The hell?” Dean murmurs, but then someone else, standing above him and blocking the sun, speaks. 

“Nickel for your thoughts?”

Dean looks up, sees Leah standing there, one hand on her hip, the other tossing up and catching a set of keys over and over again. She’s wearing jeans, tight around her curves, stonewashed enough to be practically white, highlighting her tan, anklets of tiny bells peeking out over the straps of four-inch stilettos. Dean’s eyes rest for a moment on the way her shirt pulls tight over a flat stomach, hugs her breasts, dips low enough that he’d be able to see down to her belly-button if he was standing. 

He stands up and slips the carving into his pocket. 

Leah grins, tilts her head, and says, “Or I could try and distract you.” It’s half a question, hesitance in her eyes that Dean thinks isn’t related to her offer, but, rather, whatever Sam and the others might have said about her.

Dean looks her over again, gives her a smile that’s more teeth than lips, and says, “I could use some distraction.” 

\--

She lives above Ren’s coffee shop, has a back door and steps to the apartment upstairs like Sam had, but where Sam’s apartment was filled with plants, looked hippie and bohemian and a little out there, Leah’s is ridiculously normal. 

“Make yourself comfortable,” she says, tossing the keys on a table set next to a leather sofa. The apartment looks lush, what he can see of it, but nothing’s out of place. “My daughter’s at school and the dog’s getting groomed,” she calls out from the kitchen, and comes back with two beers, pops already topped. She hands one to Dean, leans against the wall, and Dean sits down on the couch, takes a sip of his beer. 

“You want anything to eat? I’ve had a pot of chili simmering all morning,” she says. 

Dean thinks of the pentagram, tucked in his pocket, and says, “No, I’m good, thanks.” 

He’s looking around one minute, and the next, Leah’s straddling him, hands empty and curling around his neck. Dean puts his beer down, winds his hands around her hips, using her belt-loops to tug her closer. 

“No small talk?” he murmurs, and then her lips on his, hips grinding down against him. 

She’s warm, pliant under his hands, and as Dean’s fingers slip under the waistband of her jeans, he realises she’s not wearing underwear. 

\--

Dean doesn’t get back to the Moores’ house until well after dark. Sam’s waiting up for him in the front room, not doing anything except sitting there, legs splayed, gloves off and on the sofa cushion next to him. Dean’s throat dries at the image, the way Sam looks at him and then _looks_ at him, seems to know exactly where he’s been and what he’s been doing. 

He resents it, a little, but Dean also feels guilt, anxiety, because Sam _knows_ , somehow, and now that Dean’s back, all he can think of is the curve of Sam’s neck, the feel of Sam’s giant hands covering his cheeks, the smooth glide of his own thumbs sweeping along the line of Sam’s jaw. He feels dirty, and hates it. 

“We have to be in Montana by Wednesday,” Sam says. “Paul brought home a book for me to look at. There’s a demon possessing a girl in Missoula; she’s going after a family sometime next weekend.” 

“You know that, how?” Dean asks. 

Sam’s lips quirk up in the imitation of a smile, and he says, “Patterns and guesses. A distant relative of the girl touched it a few decades ago and the demon’s checking out the targeted family now. I made a few calls, did a little research, and they’re expecting a guest next weekend. Long lost family or something. It seems like the right time to pull something off.” 

“You didn’t see it,” Dean says, tone casually light. “Like, a vision of the future or something? It’s just a guess?”

Sam raises an eyebrow and says, “It’s just a guess.” 

Dean’s pretty sure his brother’s telling the truth. The fact that he can’t tell, one hundred percent, for certain, though, goes a long way toward bringing the tension back. 

“Since you’re actually talking to me,” Dean says, rewarded by a glare from Sam, “you mind explaining this?” and reaches in his pocket for the pentagram. He takes it out, tosses it at Sam without thinking, and Sam catches it, yanks it out of mid-air and drops it like it scalded him, bending over, hands going to his head and scrabbling at his temples. 

Dean’s on his knees at Sam’s side before he even thinks about moving, reaching up and pushing Sam’s hair out of his face. “What was it, Sam? What happened?”

“She took it out,” Sam pushes out from between clenched teeth. “She took it out and touched it. That’s all.”

One hand bats Dean’s hands away, and Sam stands up, picks up his gloves and pulls them on, flinches away from Dean as Dean stands up as well and reaches out to help steady his brother. 

“What did you see?” Dean asks, worried about how pale his brother looks, about the way Sam’s wavering on his feet, eyes still closed.

Sam shakes his head, says, “It’s nothing. Just a message, that’s all,” and starts walking to the doorway without looking where he’s going. 

“Sam,” Dean says, but stops when Sam shakes his head again. 

“It’s all right. I’m fine. I’m just, I’ll take some meds and go to bed.” 

There’s nothing Dean can do, nothing Sam will let him do, so he just says, “I’ll be ready to leave in the morning, whenever you are.” 

\--

Paul and Jeanette stand on the sidewalk outside of their home, his arm wrapped around her waist, as Sam loads up a duffel bag and the box into the backseat of the Impala, gloved hands lingering over the box for a moment. 

“Take care of him, Dean,” Paul says. “And if you need anything, just call us.” 

Jeanette nods, adds, “Sam’s family. Anything we can do,” and trails off. 

Dean nods, gives them both a thankful smile, and moves to the car, to the driver’s side door, while Sam says his goodbyes. He’s not close enough to hear what’s being said, they’re speaking too softly for that, lost in their own private words of grief and remembrance, he guesses, looking away as Jeanette begins to cry. Paul says something, claps his hand on Sam’s shoulder, and Sam stands there, watches, as the couple goes back inside. 

After a minute, Dean says, “We leaving?” 

Sam turns around, blinking back tears, Dean thinks, and says, “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”


	4. Chapter 4

Sam has to be starved for casual physical contact. It’s driving Dean crazy to know that he’s the only person Sam can touch and not read, to know that Sam’s denying himself even hand-to-hand training without the gloves, but it doesn’t look like Sam even cares. That just makes Dean more and more upset, until he finally snaps one night, finally says, “Look, am I _that_ repulsive? Do you hate me that much?” 

The look Sam gives him, full of confusion, alarm, and guilt, goes a long way to assuaging Dean’s fear, but when Sam says, “Why would I hate you?” Dean scoffs. 

It’s as good a time as any to have this argument, after two weeks of tiptoeing around Jess’ parents, neither of whom knew the truth of who Sam was, under the politesse and the relationship he had with their daughter, and two weeks on the road, Sam being careful to not touch anything, needing to at times with the cases they’ve been working, the demon in Montana, a thunderbird in Oklahoma, haunted artefacts they’ve just cleared out in southern Georgia. Dean’s not denying it’s useful, but he hates seeing Sam caught in the vision or whatever it is, hates the way Sam’s hands shake over the pill bottles when he thinks Dean isn’t looking. 

“It’s an easy assumption to make, Sam,” Dean says. “We go on a hunt, you get hurt, I stitch you up and suck you off, and you’re gone the next time anyone looks. Seeing as how there’s only one thing different in that list from any other time since you were twelve, I think it’s pretty obvious what freaked you out.” 

Sam stands up from his chair, says something about not having to stay and listen to this, but Dean beats him to the door, locks it and leans against it. It’s more symbolic than anything, because Sam _is_ four inches taller and could find a way to get around Dean if he wanted to, but Sam throws his hands up in the air, winces at the pull on his skin, and turns around. 

“You left because of me, Sam, just admit it.” 

Sam turns back around, faces Dean, and bites out, “Fuck you,” in a tone that honestly has Dean worried. “ _Fuck. You._ You think I left because you, what, raped me or something?” He laughs, a sharp, jagged sound, and says, “You’ve honestly thought that for the past three years? Dean, _everyone_ wants you to fuck them. Even I did.” 

Dean blinks. “Why’d you leave, then?” he asks after a moment to try and let what Sam’s said digest. A moment isn’t long enough, because it’s still rattling around in his skull, like any second now it’ll make sense, he just has to hold on a little longer. 

“Because it’s not right,” Sam says, sitting down with a huff, glowering up at Dean through his bangs. “It’s _incest_. It’s not right and it’s not normal, and if we’d had any semblance of normality when we were growing up, it wouldn’t have happened. Brothers just don’t wake up one day and want to fuck, it’s _wrong_. I had to leave, don’t you see? You weren’t about to, and I already had the acceptance letter from Stanford, was trying to figure out how to tell you two. It was easier to just leave after Dad found it and started yelling. Perfect timing, really.” 

“You could’ve told us,” Dean says, crossing his arms, moving from shock to anger. “Dad’s been thinking you hate him, and you’re right, I’ve been worried about you, about what happened. I thought I’d crossed a line there.” 

Sam cuts him off, says, “You did. We did. It wasn’t rape, I was, hell, Dean, I wasn’t complaining, you know? But it’s wrong. It’s _wrong_.”

Dean watches as Sam rubs his eyes, is starting to feel like there’s something he’s still missing in all of this, and then it hits him. The way Sam watched him when he first met Jess, the way Jess was so clearly possessive, the fire in Sam’s eyes when Dean met Leah, the way Sam was sitting after Dean had spent the afternoon with Leah. 

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself, Sam,” he says quietly, and bites his lip when Sam leans back in his chair, looks at the ceiling, shaking his head and smiling in resignation. 

“Because I am. It’s just. God. I still want to know what it would be like to, to be with you. I still have dreams about the way your.” He stops himself, says, “With Jess, it was easier to forget. I love, loved, her, loved her so much, and knowing she loved me back, that she could touch me, figuring that you wouldn’t be able to, it didn’t hurt so much.”

Dean steps away from the door, stops mid-movement when Sam looks at him, shakes his head and tells him to stay there. 

“It’s still wrong, Dean, no matter how much I just want to _touch_ someone else. It’s still wrong, and sick, and twisted, and I _can’t_.”

No matter what else Dean says, that’s the end of the conversation as far as Sam’s concerned. 

They crawl into different beds, and Dean lies there, staring at the ceiling and wide awake, for hours, until the morning sunlight’s starting to bleed through the thin motel curtains. Sam’s breathing soft and even, but Dean can tell his brother’s just as awake, still is when Dean finally drifts off into an uneasy rest. 

\--

Sam’s gone when Dean wakes up, but his duffel’s where Sam dropped it the night before, the laptop’s humming away on the table, only things missing are a gun and a knife. Dean doesn’t worry that Sam’s taken off on him again after the argument last night, _can’t_ worry or he’ll drive himself crazy, so he goes into the bathroom to take a shower. 

When Dean’s done, dressed, and opened the door, the room’s still empty, but a key jiggles in the lock a mere handful of seconds later. Dean’s in the middle of reaching for a gun when the knob turns and Sam walks in, looking sweaty and flushed, damp hair clinging to his forehead and his neck, and carrying two cups of coffee. 

“Didn’t think you’d be awake yet,” Sam says, stepping inside, using his hip to shut the door before handing over one of the cups to Dean. 

Dean just smiles and shrugs, accepts the unspoken peace offering for now. 

“Do I have time for a shower, or do we need to get somewhere?” Sam asks. 

Dean snorts, fake sniffs in Sam’s general direction, and says, “Dude, you _don’t_ shower? We won’t need to shoot anything; all the monsters’ll just keel over from the stench. Go shower.” 

Sam rolls his eyes, but there’s a grin under the scoffing. He grabs some clothes, goes into the bathroom and shuts the door, locks it as well, which makes the smile fade from Dean’s face. 

Dean sits on the edge of his bed, rubs his eyes, and mutters, “This is going to be so awkward, isn’t it. Fuck.”

\--

After a diner breakfast, heavy on coffee and cholesterol, they head north, in the direction of Vermont and some haunted ski lodge. Dean makes a _Shining_ joke every five minutes for the first hundred miles, until Sam tells him to leave it alone, at which point Dean blasts _Zeppelin IV_ and watches Sam sleep out of the corner of one eye. 

It doesn’t look like a very restful sleep, with Sam twitching every so often, head moving back and forth the slightest amount, eyes going crazy in REM sleep. Dean tries to ignore it, but when Sam breathes out a pained, “Jess,” Dean’s knuckles tighten around the steering wheel, turn white with the pressure. 

Dean’s been trying not to think about it too much, hates the way the mere thought of what he did, his too-impulsive actions, sink into his stomach and make him feel like he’ll be sick any second. To know that he’s responsible for leading the demon to Jess, to know that, without him, Sam would be happy, and to know that on top of knowing what he does now about why Sam really left all those years ago, it’s enough to drive him crazy, until even “Black Dog” can’t drown out his thoughts. 

\--

They stop for the night in Pennsylvania, sleep in separate beds, and Dean wakes up almost painfully hard. He takes care of his erection in the shower, tries not to feel guilty when he looks at Sam after they leave, sitting in the passenger seat, staring out of the window. 

They don’t talk much during the rest of the drive to Vermont, and Dean thinks that the clerk at the desk picks up on the tension when they check in to the lodge. Sam takes his gloves off while Dean’s signing someone else’s name to the register, and as they go up to their room, Sam trails one finger along the banister, looking thoughtful and focused as the skin around his eyes slowly scrunches up in pain. 

Once inside the room, Dean asks, “So what does it feel like?” At Sam’s look, he adds, “When you have the visions or whatever it is you see. You just touch something, and wham, it’s all there? Or does it start whenever what you touch was made and go through its history?” 

Sam sits down on the bed, puts his gloves back on over skin that’s scarred but looks nearly back to normal. “It depends on how prepared I am,” he admits, and Dean thinks back to the car, to the way Sam didn’t move except to breathe, to blink, and how even that looked rhythmic, timed. 

“You were meditating in the car?” he asks, and Sam nods. 

“It helps. Meditation, t’ai chi, yoga, thinks like that, to clear the mind. Usually I pick up on emotional events first, or things related to the supernatural, but I get everything,” Sam admits. “It can take a while to sift through everything to find what I’m looking for, but it’s not usually so bad with objects. People are worse.” 

Dean says, “Because they’re more emotional,” and Sam nods. “What did you see when you touched the banister?” Dean asks next. 

Sam’s eyes go distant for a moment, a look Dean recognises from before Sam left for Stanford, when he was working through something, usually when he was writing an essay and trying to remember something, trying to connect two things that most people wouldn’t even put in the same universe. It’s a look he hasn’t seen since then, and it goes a long way to reassuring him that the Sam he knew, the Sam he remembers, is still part of this new Sam, this Sam that won’t touch Dean even now that Dean’s literally the last person on earth that Sam can touch. 

“A lot of people come here and have affairs,” Sam finally says, “and there have been some arguments, some concerns about accidents, but I can’t tell whether or not any of them ended up dead. If it is a ghost, and not an object here, the ghost doesn’t slide down the banister.” 

Dean grins, says, “Well, it’s a stupid ghost, then. Think we’ll get kicked out if _I_ slide down the banister?” and feels like he’s finally done something right when Sam laughs. 

\--

They creep around that night after most of the other guests have gone to bed and the staff has shut the restaurant and bar down, the only people on call working at the desk. Dean’s carrying around the EMF, and every time the gadget picks something up, no matter how slight, Sam’s right there, running his fingers along the edges of picture frames, cupping curves of flowerpots and miniature statues, pressing his palm against wall corners. 

Dean thinks it’s obscene, watching Sam’s long fingers, huger-than-life hands act like that, and the only thing keeping his mind off of pushing Sam against a wall and doing exactly what he’s wanted to for three years is the way Sam’s looking more and more pained with everything he touches. 

When they haven’t found anything haunted or visited by the potential ghost after a couple hours, Dean says, “We should get to bed,” studying the set of Sam’s jaw. 

“One more,” Sam says. “I’m good for one more,” and the fact that he’s not arguing, that he’s owning up to being in some pain means it’s probably more serious than Dean had thought. 

Dean opens his mouth to argue, but Sam levels a look at him, so he shrugs and says, “One more.” He walks down the hallway a little further, and this time the EMF goes crazy when it sweeps across a shelf of books. The sound on the EMF is off, thankfully, and Dean almost keeps going, pretends nothing happened, but then Sam’s hovering over his shoulder and giving the books a narrow-eyed look. 

Sam reaches out, but Dean claps his hand around Sam’s wrist before Sam can touch anything. 

“Nothing else lit up the reader like this,” Dean says, “and you’re already looking ragged around the edges. You sure this is a good idea?” 

Sam yanks his hand out of Dean’s grasp, rubs his wrist, and Dean sees a shiver go through Sam’s body, starting at his hairline and travelling downwards. “I’m fine,” he mutters, and reaches unerringly for a book near the left side. Sam’s fingers make contact with the spine of the book, and he stiffens, all of his muscles locked into place at once. Sam’s eyes are wide open, caught in something Dean can’t see and looking panicked, horrified. 

Dean reaches up to move Sam’s hand from the book, then pauses, unsure what breaking the connection would do, kicking himself for not knowing these things by now, but then Sam’s hand falls off the book, tugged down by gravity, and the rest of Sam tries to follow. Dean drops the EMF, catches his brother before Sam hits the floor, and manhandles Sam against the wall, using the wall to help hold Sam up. 

“Hey,” he says, hand rubbing Sam’s cheek. “Hey, come on, Sammy, I just need a little help from you. You awake in there?” 

Sam jerks his head away from Dean’s hand, squints out from practically closed eyelids, and says, “I’m awake. I’m just. I’m fine.” 

“You’re fine, and I’m the friggin’ tooth fairy, come on.” 

Somehow they manage to get back to their room, EMF in tow, and Dean drops Sam on to his bed, is caught off-balance when Sam’s hand curls in Dean’s shirt and tugs. 

“What?” Dean asks, and Sam finally opens his eyes. 

“Dean, don’t,” Sam whispers, then stops, blinks, seems like he changes his mind about what he was going to say. “I can’t. The meds. Please, I just need something.” 

Dean starts to nod, but Sam’s only supposed to have two a day, and he had his evening medication before they went out searching for anything they could find. Of course, that was a couple hours ago, and Sam’s head has to be killing him with the reaction he had to that book. Dean suddenly has a lot more respect for Jess, being able to resist the look Sam’s giving him now, sure that Sam tried it out on her more than once. 

“Just aspirin,” Dean says. “You’re doing good, Sam; don’t let this push you back. Please. I’ll get you some aspirin.” 

Sam doesn’t say anything, but he lets go of Dean’s shirt, and it’s not until three hours later, when Sam’s clutching his pillow as he sleeps, that Dean realises this is the first time Sam has reached out to him since Jess died. He only hates that it’s because Sam was begging for drugs he’d been addicted to, might still be, despite the eagle-eye Dean’s kept on the bottles. 

Dean’s been sitting on his bed, watching Sam, but at that thought, that sudden suspicion, he gets up, goes into the bathroom, and goes through Sam’s medication, counts the pills, does the calculations, and breathes a sigh of relief. Four weeks since Sam left the hospital, and he hasn’t taken one more pill than he’s been directed to. 

\--

Dean’s a light sleeper, was even before he was trained into it, but it takes him a minute to figure out what woke him up when he checks the clock and sees he’s only been asleep for a couple hours. He looks over at Sam, sees that Sam’s tossing and turning, getting his feet tangled up in the covers, and Dean sighs, sits up, pulls the blankets away from Sam’s legs carefully, gently, so as not to wake up his brother. 

Dean pads to the bathroom, pisses and washes his hands and face, looks in the mirror then shakes his head at his reflection, goes back out into the room. Sam doesn’t look like he’s getting any rest, so Dean sits on the edge of Sam’s bed, places one hand lightly, so very lightly, on Sam’s shoulder, just letting his palm rest there, and watches as Sam settles, breathes deeper. 

He raises an eyebrow, wonders if Jess had the same effect on Sam, and then tries not to think about her, instead pushes Sam over.

Sam opens one eye, licks his lips and says, voice cracking with sleep and nightmares, “What? Dean?” 

“Scoot your giant ass over, Sam,” Dean replies, and Sam’s still asleep, out of it, because he follows directions without saying a word, and after Dean’s comfortable, Sam turns, twines his legs in with Dean’s, and falls back asleep. 

\--

The light whuff of breath against Dean’s neck hitches in rhythm, that’s what wakes him up this time, and he blinks in the light, laying completely motionless as Sam wakes up, slow like he’s been doing lately, a small groan escaping Sam’s lips that speaks of pain and headaches. 

Their legs are a jumble under the covers Dean pulled up around six, the room too cold to go without, and one of Sam’s arms is across Dean’s chest, hand hanging off the other side of Dean’s body. 

Sam shifts and Dean feels his brother’s cock twitch against his hip. 

“Feel any better?” Dean asks quietly, expecting Sam to back away, to get out of bed and avoid him for the rest of the day, using the hunt as an excuse. 

Instead, Sam says, “No,” and moves closer to Dean, presses his face against Dean’s shoulder, blocking his eyes from the light of the room. “More sleep.” 

Dean doesn’t have a problem with that, says as much, and he lies there while Sam falls back asleep, burning from the heat of Sam’s body. 

\--

For the third time in nine hours, Dean wakes up, this time reaching under the pillow for a gun before he remembers that he’s in Sam’s bed, changes the trajectory of his search for a knife, instead. He opens his eyes, looks at the ghost of a woman standing at the foot of Sam’s bed, feels Sam sigh into his neck and sink deeper into sleep. 

The ghost looks at him, and Dean looks back. Her mouth forms words but Dean can’t make them out, something about a book, about longing, and then her eyes drift from him to Sam. Dean’s not having that, has never liked it when supernatural things take an interest in his brother and doesn’t like it now, not with the ghost looking at Sam as if she thinks she’s found something she’s been in search of for centuries. 

“He’s mine,” Dean murmurs, and when Sam jerks awake, the ghost hisses, bares her teeth at Dean and disappears in a cloud of ozone.

Dean puts the knife down on the side table, and Sam pushes himself up, looks at Dean, looks at the knife, and says, carefully, “I think I missed something.” 

\--

They’ve thrown on clothes, neither of them talking about the night of sleep or, rather, where they spent it, intent on the hunt now that the ghost has reared her head and invaded their bedroom. 

“You touched the book last night,” Dean says with no preamble, once they’ve both got coffee and room service is supposed to be bringing up breakfast. “What did you see?” 

Sam sips his coffee slowly, grimacing a little at the taste, and says, “It’s a book of fairy tales. A man, he looked Revolution-era, bought it for his wife before he left. He was worried about her, didn’t want to leave, but felt like it was his duty. She read it every day and he never came back. When the British came, she tried to fight them off. They killed her.” Sam clears his throat, adds, “The book’s been passed around since then, but the ghost, I think it has to be the woman.” 

“It is,” Dean says dryly. 

Sam eyes the knife, lying on the table, and then flicks his gaze back to Dean, raises an eyebrow.

“She came looking for you,” Dean says, and Sam doesn’t reply to that, doesn’t say anything about how Dean reacted to that idea with knives and violence. It doesn’t surprise Dean that Sam’s not saying a thing, but Sam’s not exactly looking disgusted, or closed off, just thoughtful.

Eventually, Sam says, “I want to have another look at the book.” 

Dean tells Sam to stay right there, and goes to retrieve it. 

People are awake, moving around the lodge, a few coming in with red cheeks and wide smiles, some leaving all bundled up in snowsuits, lugging around skis and a last cup of coffee. They nod at him, smile and say hi, and Dean’s friendly in return, but he grabs the book and goes back to the room, ignoring one woman’s murmured offer to let him help warm her up. 

Sam’s sitting on the bed when Dean gets back, gets in their room and locks the door behind him, and it looks as if he hasn’t moved, took Dean’s words literally. The look on Sam’s face, though, is that reflective one again, the one that says he’s thinking much too hard about something, trying to take something he’s been told and see how it fits into his own life. 

“Got the book,” Dean says, and when Sam jumps slightly, holds out his hands, Dean says, “Not until you put some gloves on. Two pairs, even, if things are bleeding through.” 

Sam rolls his eyes but pulls on a pair of gloves, holds out his hands again. Dean gives him the book and sits down across from Sam on the other bed, his bed, the one that only saw a couple hours of sleep, watching as Sam holds the book almost reverently, opens it and runs his finger down the contents page. 

“He gave her the book before he left,” Sam says, turning the pages carefully, slowly, one by one. Dust falls off and sticks to his black gloves. “He promised her that if she read one story a day, he’d be back in time to read the last one to her.” 

“Except he died,” Dean says, sharp and short, not liking the tone of Sam’s voice, the way he can see Sam’s hands shaking as they hold the book. He grabs it from his brother, closes it with a bang and sees more dust fly up in the air. “So she’s attached to the book. We’ll throw it in the fireplace downstairs and she’ll be gone.” 

Sam looks up at him, eyes swimming with something that might be residual headache, might be annoyance, but he doesn’t argue, just sighs. 

Dean unlocks the door, opens it, and looks straight at the ghost, who’s hovering in the hallway. “Well, shit,” he says, and slams the door, the ghost floating through the door a moment later, hissing and spitting at Dean. Dean steps back, unfazed, because he’s seen this type of thing before, but then the ghost stops, looks past Dean to Sam, and calms, smiles. 

“Don’t move,” Dean orders his brother, but the bed squeaks and Dean hears footsteps a moment later, footsteps getting closer. “Sam,” he growls, but Sam doesn’t stop, so Dean reaches in his back pocket and curls his hand around a pentagram instead of his lighter. “Sam, what the fuck did you to do to my lighter?” 

Sam doesn’t say anything, and the ghost flows _through_ Dean, who’s juggling the book in his hands as he goes through his pockets. Dean turns, feeling desperation creep up on him, and watches as the ghost reaches out one hand to Sam. 

“Sam, no!” Dean shouts, but Sam, who’s taken his gloves off, lifts up one of his hand, slides his palm over her’s. 

Dean’s hand wraps around the pentagram again, and he pulls it out, flings it at the spirit. It hits her, bounces off, and she howls in pain, her image sporting a circular brand in the middle of her back, still smoking. She turns, snarling, but Sam says something, too quiet for Dean to hear. She stops, looks back at Sam, and Sam smiles, says whatever he said before, Dean thinks, again. 

The ghost reaches out, trails her fingers down Sam’s cheek, and then explodes in a haze of ozone and lace. 

Dean drops the book, rushes over to Sam, searches Sam’s eyes as his fingers trace over Sam’s face before he grabs Sam’s shoulders and shakes. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he yells. “She could have killed you! With your gift, with the way she was looking at you, Sam, God.” 

His heart is beating so fast Dean thinks his chest might explode from the pressure, and the way Sam’s smiling now, the glossy sheen to his eyes, just makes it worse. 

“I understood her,” Sam’s saying, something like that, by the time the blood stops roaring through Dean’s ears and he can hear words, put sound to the shape of Sam’s lips. “I knew what she was going through.” 

“ _What?_ ” 

“I knew,” Sam says again, seems unmoved by Dean’s incomprehension, his worry and outrage. “She just wanted her husband back. She didn’t realise how much she loved him until she lost him. She just needed to tell someone how much he meant to her. No one would listen, that’s all.” 

Dean’s throat works for a moment, sound stuck, until he can muster up a weak laugh, turns and walks away from Sam, until he’s standing half a room away, looking down at the book, his back to his brother. “Because of Jess,” he says. “Right? Because you just want her back, but you can’t have her because I killed her and don’t want to talk about it.” 

Sam moves behind Dean, and Dean stiffens in response, leans down and picks up the book, holds it, studying it, testing the weight of it in his hands. 

“Dean,” Sam murmurs, and Sam’s close, too close. His breath is stirring the hairs on the back of Dean’s neck, and they’re arguing, sort of, which is a lousy time for his body to react to the heat Sam’s emitting, so close and yet untouchable, now more than ever. “Dean, look at me.” 

Dean moves closer to the door, then turns around, meeting Sam’s eyes straight on. It’s hard, his fingers tighten around the book, but he does it and then wishes he hadn’t, wishes he’d gotten the book and kept going downstairs, thrown it in the fireplace and been done with it.

“Dean, she wanted what she couldn’t have. She waited all this time to tell someone, that’s how much she wanted her husband back,” Sam says. "I'll always love Jess, but I know she's gone. She's not coming back. She's not here.”

Dean shrugs, doesn’t trust his voice enough to say anything, but the gesture’s universal. 

Sam takes a deep breath, steps closer to Dean. “Last night, when I touched the book,” he pauses, breathes deep again, as if he’s remembering last night and it’s affecting him just as much now. “I felt what she did, that desperation, the need. And all she could think about was her husband being with her, doing whatever it took to make the true. She _longed_ for him and didn’t realise how much until it was too late.” 

Dean’s not breathing, because Sam’s stepped closer again, and his eyes are moving back and forth between Dean’s eyes and Dean’s lips. 

“It’s wrong,” Sam says. “It’s wrong to want you the way I do, and I’ll never believe otherwise, but. But, Dean. Jess is gone and I want you. Dean. I don’t care.” 

Sam’s stopped, is standing there, waiting for a response, anything, and all Dean can think is that this isn’t enough, that it’s too little, too late, but his cock’s hard, his mouth is dry, and he’s remembering the way Sam looked when his dick was in Dean’s mouth, the way Sam’s skin glowed, the way Sam panted and groaned. 

“No.” Dean shakes his head, steps back again, hits the door. “No. It’s not you talking, Sam, not to change your mind this quick. The ghost, she must’ve done something to you, overloaded your brain or something, I dunno, but I know this isn’t you.” 

It hurts to say, just like it hurts to see the look on Sam’s face, but Dean’s doing the right thing, he _is_. All Sam needs is a little sleep, a little time, and whatever she did will wear off, Sam’ll be horrified when he remembers this. Dean wishes like hell that wasn’t true, but it is, fuck it, so he sets the book on the table and leaves the room before all of his good intentions go up in flames and he drops to his knees right then and there. 

Sam will thank him later, Dean’s sure of it, but he’s hard and aching, ready for a fuck, so he finds out what room the woman from before is staying in and knocks on her door. 

She opens the door, purrs a “Hey, stranger,” and Dean doesn’t emerge for three hours.

\--

He slips back into the room he and Sam are sharing, sees Sam lying facedown on his bed, the one furthest from the door. Dean thinks Sam’s sleeping, so he takes a moment and lets his eyes trail over Sam’s body, starting at his monstrously huge feet, wearing what looks like two pairs of socks, up the jeans-clad legs, around the curve of Sam’s ass and down the dip to a small strip of skin visible before the hoodie covers up Sam’s broad back and the arms with elbows out, hands pillowing Sam’s face. Sam’s hair is curlier than usual without having had a shower, curly and flying every which way.

Dean wants nothing more than to be able to walk over to his brother, move that hair out of his way and lay kiss after kiss on Sam’s neck, wake Sam up by pushing his hands under Sam’s shirt, up his back, but he doesn’t do any of that. Instead, feeling his skin itch like he’s allergic to guilt, Dean goes into the bathroom, shuts and locks the door and then leans on it, exhaling. 

He’s never been able to deny Sam anything, and if Sam keeps asking, Dean’s going to break sooner rather than later. It’d be better for them both if Dean was around but not _around_ , keeping an eye on Sam but not the way he really wants to be. Sam thinks, knows, that this is wrong, this desire, and the ghost just tripped his circuits. 

Dean’s used to putting aside what he wants, especially for Sam. This is just one more time he’ll have to do it.


	5. Chapter 5

They check out of the lodge the next morning and drive towards a new job in western Michigan. Dean hadn’t slept well the night before, kept waking up every time Sam flopped over in his bed, but he wasn’t about to go over there and crawl into bed with Sam again, has hardly been willing to touch Sam, and Sam’s starting to look like maybe he’s regretting the way he crowded Dean up against a door and said what Dean’s been waiting to hear for three years. 

The roads are clear of snow, thankfully, but it still takes them longer to cross New York than Dean would’ve liked, so they stop halfway through Pennsylvania for the night. The ride was silent save for Motorhead and Guns ‘n Roses, trading off for hours, and the quiet between him and Sam is starting to get to Dean. 

“What’re you thinking for dinner?” he asks as they drive into a small town. “We got fast food, diner, and bar. Your pick.” 

Dean’s expecting Sam to comment on how unhealthy all of those choices are, that or something about getting food and taking it back to the room so Sam doesn’t have to worry about casual contact with anyone else, so he’s surprised when Sam hums and then says, “Bar.” He gives Sam a look, and Sam shrugs, says, “I could go for a beer.” 

\--

‘A beer’ turns into two, then three, then more than Dean can remember to count, caught in there with a few shots, a pretty good burger for him and salad for Sam, cheese fries that they split. They’d knocked knuckles once, reaching for fries at the same time, and they’d both flinched, pulled back quickly enough so that they both knew it meant something. 

Sam drives back to the motel, Dean too wobbly and trusting Sam when Sam says he’s fine, and Sam helps him back inside once they get there, wrangles off Dean’s jacket and pushes his brother down onto the bed. 

Dean flops back, stares at the ceiling, and says, “Bet it sucks,” because if there’s one thing being drunk makes him besides horny, it’s loose at the mouth. 

“What’s that?” Sam asks, sounding half-amused and not nearly as wasted as Dean, and that’s just not fair. 

“Not being able to touch anything,” Dean drawls, lazily waving a hand as if to accentuate his words. “Not touching. And then. And then having the one person you _can_ touch be your brother.” 

Sam laughs, a low, husky sound that sends chills up and down Dean’s spine, before he says, “Actually, that part doesn’t bother me so much. Kind of relieves me.” 

Dean pushes himself up on an elbow, frowns in Sam’s general direction, then flops back down. “Why?” 

“Why does it relieve me?” Sam asks, and when Dean hums, he says, “Because if there’s one person in the world I want to touch, it would be you.” 

Sam sits on the edge of Dean’s bed, and Dean freezes, mind clearing from the fog just enough to guess that he’s been set up. 

“Sam,” he says, but Sam puts a finger over Dean’s lips. 

Dean doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything, but Sam’s warm, smells like beer and tequila, maybe a little Jack, and his finger is _right there_. Dean’s lips are already parted, it would be so easy to just flatten his tongue, poke it out between his lips and taste Sam, see if he can taste the lingering edges of cheese fries and ranch dressing on his brother’s skin. He closes his eyes, tries not to move, tells himself he won’t, over and over again. 

“Just listen, Dean,” and Dean can’t help _but_ listen to Sam’s voice, thick and clogged with bar smoke and beer, scratchy and rich at the same time. He looks up at Sam, searches his brother’s eyes, and watches the way Sam’s pupils flare and darken as Sam talks.

“I ran away because I wanted you to fuck me, and that scared me. I spent three years telling myself it was wrong to want you. I told Jess everything, she knew how much I wanted you, wanted me to talk to you about it. I still want you to fuck me, Dean, to open me up and fuck me and kiss me and mark me. I want you to make me yours.”

Dean closes his eyes again. 

“And I can touch you without getting anything back from you, like Jess, but when I touch you, Dean, it’s like you draw all of the pain of this, this gift, out of me. You make me feel better, just by touching me, and Jess never could. I want you, and then this happens, and it’s like, it’s like a sign, isn’t it? The ghost, she was right, it’s stupid to deny it when you’re _right here_ , when anything could happen to either one of us. If you die, if you leave me.”

Dean cuts him off, opens his eyes and musters up all the glare he can with all the booze he has swimming around in his body. “I’m never leaving you, Sam,” he says, half-growling, reaching up and wrapping his hand around Sam’s wrist, holding tight enough to hear the bones pop and resettle in their joints. “ _I’m_ not the one who runs away, and I’m _not_ dying, y’hear me?” 

Sam smiles, a sad, broken sort of smile, and leans down, presses his lips to Dean’s forehead, light enough that Dean thinks he might be imagining it. “I’m sorry I left,” Sam says, then kisses Dean’s left eyelid and says, “I was so scared, because I wanted you so badly.” He stops, kisses the right eyelid. “It’s not normal, but I don’t care anymore.” Sam lets his lips glide across Dean’s, feather-light and burning, and he says, “But when did we ever do normal anyway, huh?” 

He waits there, hovering, a clear invitation. Sam planned this, planned all of it, and Dean’s drunk, has no self-control to speak of, so he arches his back, brings his head off of the pillow, and meshes his lips against Sam’s as his hands go up and force Sam’s head down. 

Sam opens his mouth and slips his tongue inside of Dean’s mouth, slides his tongue against Dean’s, and Dean growls, pushes Sam away, down on to the bed, and rolls, straddles himself on top of his brother, attacks Sam’s mouth. He searches out every crevice, every dip in every tooth, every line of gum and palate, like a starving man searching for food. 

He’s been waiting three years to do this and he’s drunk, but it’s so _good_ , Sam’s hands cupping and squeezing his ass, Sam’s hair tangled up in Dean’s hands, that Dean honestly doesn’t care what comes of it later, tomorrow, five years from now. 

\--

Dean pants, forehead pressed against Sam’s, feeling beer and Jack swim in his veins. Sam, under him, is waiting, is darting his tongue out and licking at Dean’s lips, still so close to Sam’s. 

“Sam,” Dean says between breaths. “Sam, stop me, _please_.” 

“If I don’t want you to stop?” Sam asks, moves his hips, lets Dean feel Sam’s cock, hard and trapped inside Sam’s jeans. “If I asked you to, you’d fuck me, wouldn’t you? You can’t tell me no, Dean, it’s not in you to tell me no. How you lasted this long, I have no idea.” 

Dean grinds down against Sam, sees through blurry eyes as Sam’s head falls back, as Sam’s mouth opens in a silent groan. 

“Want you,” Dean whispers, and leans down, starts tracing a path down the column of Sam’s throat, licking and sucking, biting and kissing, leaving marks and bruises. “Fuck, Sam. Never stopped.” 

He drags his teeth over Sam’s pulse point, feels Sam arch upwards again, fumbles with the button on Sam’s jeans. 

“Dean, wait,” Sam says, and Dean freezes. 

He should’ve known, shouldn’t have given in even this much, shouldn’t have said as much as he has, but he’s hard and Sam said he _wants_ Dean, has always wanted Dean. He battles the need to keep going, to say that Sam already had his chance, but eventually rolls off, lands on the mattress and looks up at the ceiling, dizzy from the movement, from the blood inside of him that isn’t sure whether it should stay in his dick or start cycling outwards again. 

“I want you to be sober when we do this,” Sam says, turning, laying on his side. He rubs against Dean for a moment, as if he can’t help it, but then wraps his arms around Dean, butts his head into Dean’s shoulder. “I just wanted to be able to talk to you, and I knew you wouldn’t listen otherwise. I just. In the morning, Dean. I want you to fuck me. Will you?” 

Dean can’t say no, so he doesn’t say anything at all. He closes his eyes, and when Sam asks again, he falls asleep. 

\--

His mouth tastes like wet carpet, and his tongue feels like its growing fur. Still, when Dean opens his eyes, he doesn’t wince, doesn’t have to deal with a spinning room or blurry eyes. He doesn’t feel sick, doesn’t ache, because no matter how drunk he gets, he’s never once had a hangover. 

Dean moves, kicks his feet out and off the side of the bed, and is already rolling to sit up when he feels weight across his stomach and a wet spot on his neck. He can’t stop the immediate reaction, the slightly grossed out, “Dude, were you _drooling_ on me?” 

Sam jumps, waking up and kicking Dean right in the shin. Dean leaves over and smacks his brother’s head, says, “Ow?” 

Sam rubs his head, sits up, squinting in the light. Unlike Dean, Sam is completely incapable of holding his alcohol, so it doesn’t surprise Dean one bit when Sam turns slightly green and stands up, moving unsteadily to the bathroom and kneeling in front of the toilet. Dean follows Sam into the bathroom, gets out his toothbrush and toothpaste, scrubs his teeth and tongue for five minutes, and then feels like a new man.

“I’m thinking maybe that burger I had last night was the best _ever_ ,” Dean says, conversationally. “Not too greasy, but the mayonnaise, man. Bar’s the best place to get real mayonnaise.” 

“Fuck you,” Sam groans, then starts throwing up. Dean grins, ruffles Sam’s hair, and walks out of the bathroom, sits with his back to the bathroom, and feels just as sick as Sam sounds when he remembers what they talked about last night. 

\--

Sam’s still kneeling at the toilet an hour later, forehead pressed against the porcelain, hair damp and sticking to his skin, hands pressed to his thighs. Dean’s gone out for coffee and donuts, cleaned out the Impala’s back seat, and had enough time to watch half of a Springer re-run before he finally leans against the doorframe to the bathroom, coffee in hand, and says, “You weren’t even that drunk last night, dude. Where’s all the vomit coming from?” 

“Doesn’t sit well with the,” Sam says, limply gesturing at his head. “Fine going in, doesn’t stay that way.”

“I’ll remember that,” Dean says, and even though he knows his words sound light, were _meant_ to sound light, Sam turns, twists, and looks at him. Dean shifts, stands a little straighter, looks at the bridge of Sam’s nose rather than Sam’s eyes. 

Sam huffs, then turns back, spits one more mouthful into the toilet before pushing himself up. 

Dean watches as his brother unfolds all of his limbs, stands taller than Dean even hunched over a little, holding his stomach. Sam looks miserable but better than an hour ago, pale and green at the same time, eyes bloodshot and glistening, hair in wet curls, smelling like he just spent an hour throwing up. 

“’M gonna take a shower,” Sam mutters, and steps to the bathtub, pulling the water on and wincing at the noise or the feedback from his bare skin touching the faucet, Dean’s not sure. 

Dean leaves, closes the door, and once he hears the water patterns change, hitting Sam’s skin instead of the wall, draining off of Sam before hitting the floor of the shower, he sneaks back in, puts three aspirin on the edge of the sink, and goes out, switches the television to some cheesy movie with bad special effects, and sits, back propped against the headboard of Sam’s bed, one leg dangling off the bed, and dozes. 

The water turns off, Dean registers it but doesn’t move, and he hears the bathroom door unlatch but doesn’t open his eyes. He does open his eyes, though, when the mattress under him shifts, opens his eyes and swallows. Sam’s on all fours, face three inches from Dean’s, and from the way the water’s dripping off of Sam’s hair and onto Dean’s clothes, he obviously didn’t bother drying off. 

He didn’t bother dressing, either. 

“Sam,” Dean says, unsure whether he’s asking or ordering, pleading or demanding. 

Sam smiles, though, and moves his head those three inches, closing the distance between his lips and Dean’s. 

It’s tentative at first, but as Sam’s lips, Sam’s tongue sliding out and across Dean’s lips, break down Dean’s resolve, Dean’s mouth opens and he lifts his hands, digs his nails into Sam’s back and pulls Sam closer. Sam makes a noise of approval, maybe even appreciation, and he shifts, kneels between Dean’s spread legs. 

Sam tastes like toothpaste, that and mouthwash, and he smells like motel soap and shampoo and that weird cologne Sam uses, all of that on top of a smell that Dean’s had filtering up his nostrils since he was four, a subtle, smoky scent that deepened when Sam hit puberty, just like Sam’s voice, Sam’s appetite. 

Dean kisses Sam, and when they break apart, Sam licking at the corners of Dean’s mouth, Dean says, “Sam.” 

“I’m sure,” Sam says, cutting him off before he can even ask. “Dean, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

Dean puts his hands on Sam’s cheeks, cups Sam’s face gently, thumbs stroking the line of Sam’s cheekbones, and he studies his brother’s face, searches Sam’s eyes. “No going back,” he half-asks. “We do this, and there’s no going back, Sam. We’ll be breaking laws, we can’t tell anyone, we won’t be able to look a priest straight in the eye again.” 

Sam smiles softly, tilts his face into Dean’s touch. “I know,” he says. “I don’t care.” 

They’re the three most beautiful words Dean’s ever heard, three words that he’s been longing to hear for just as many years. 

This time the kiss they share is lazy, soft and slow and gentle, as if they know they have the rest of their lives to do this. 

Dean’s sure, somewhere deep inside, that Sam will have issues with this later on down the road, that they’ll fight about it, that things will happen to make Sam doubt everything, but as far as he’s concerned, there won’t ever be anyone else. 

“Fuck me?” Sam asks, breath a whisper over Dean’s lips. “Please, Dean?”

Dean’s never been able to say no to his little brother. 

“Yeah. Yeah, okay, Sammy.” 

\--

They move, shift on the bed so that Sam’s lying on his back, already naked, still glistening. His legs are spread, propped up, and Dean’s kneeling between them, just looking at Sam, taking in the muscles under Sam’s skin, the way Sam’s cock twitches against his belly, leaving trails of pre-come, every time Dean tightens one hand on Sam’s knee, the way Sam’s laying there, still and silent and waiting, as if they have all the time in the world. 

“Dean,” Sam says, but Dean shakes his head, cuts him off, and Sam closes his mouth. 

“Have you ever,” Dean begins to ask, stops when Sam shakes his head. It makes heat curl up in Dean’s belly, heat and a fierce possessiveness, to know he’s the first one Sam’s ever asked to do this. He pauses, thinks about that, then asks, “Do you want,” trailing off because he doesn’t know how to put into words what he’s asking, what he’s trying to make sure of. 

Sam smiles, reaches up and pops the button on Dean’s jeans, and the action makes Dean’s blood go south instantly, has Dean licking his lips and arching his hips into the brief touch. “No,” Sam says. “ _Fuck me_.” 

It seems strange to finally be here, strange but wonderful, and even through the arousal racing through his veins, Dean’s worried that Sam’s going to stop him again, anxious that he has to make this as good as he can, because this might be his one and only chance. 

“You’re thinking too hard,” Sam murmurs, and leans up, bends somehow and kisses Dean. Sam slides his lips across Dean’s, nibbles slightly, sucks harder, and as Dean opens his mouth, Sam’s tongue slips in, sneak-quiet, and strokes against Dean’s. 

Dean sways, and then it’s like the worry’s gone, nerves settled and flaring into fire. His hands curl around Sam’s shoulders, push Sam back down onto the bed, head resting on a pillow of curls and down feathers, and he kisses his brother until Sam’s panting beneath him, cheeks flushed red. 

“Dean, yeah,” Sam whispers, lips searching for Dean’s again. 

Sam lifts up, head moving, eyes wide and so white, the pupils so dark, only a thin ring of green around them, but Dean shakes his head, says, “Relax, Sam,” and starts kissing his way across Sam’s jaw, down Sam’s neck. “We’ve got time.”

It starts sleeting outside, ice hitting the window and splashing into rain puddles on the ground. Sam is warm underneath Dean, warm and whimpering Dean’s name, over and over again, litany of pleading prayer, like he’s finally giving voice to the one word bottled up deep inside of him. 

Dean’s heart aches, hearing it, as he tongues Sam’s nipples, bites his way down Sam’s stomach, laves Sam’s belly button and then licks a path to Sam’s cock. 

Sam arches when Dean finally opens his mouth and sucks Sam inside, tongue swirling around the head, teeth grazing the slightest bit, feather-light pressure and wet heat, before he takes Sam in deeper, hums around his brother’s cock. 

“Fuck,” Sam says, minutes later, eternities of sweat-slicked sheets later, and the rumble of Dean’s laugh wrings an orgasm out of Sam, who lies there, chest rising and falling in harsh rhythm, as Dean swallows the taste of Sam down, the taste he’s been craving and been denied for the past three years. 

Before Sam can catch his breath, Dean’s moving off of his brother, reaching across the small space between the beds, picks up his coat and rifles through the pockets looking for his wallet, pulling out a carved pentagram instead. He sits up, looks it over, traces one finger across his brother’s initials etched into one side, and then turns it over. 

_Your other pocket._

He debates whether he should ask or not, if he should wait and ask later, after they’re done, but Dean can’t help himself. “What’s the story with these?” he asks, holding up the pentagram so Sam can see what he’s talking about. “You’ve been planting them everywhere, and there’s no way in hell you can convince me you’re not seeing the future.” 

Sam shifts, gaze falling down Dean’s body before jerking back up, sheepishly apologetic. “I don’t see the future,” he says, and adds, hurried, before Dean can say anything. “At least, not all of it. Just you.” 

Dean tilts his head, raises one eyebrow, and says, “Excuse me?” 

“Times when you might be in trouble, most of all,” Sam says, propping himself up on his elbows. “But other times, when you’re.” He stops, pauses, looks like he’s trying to find a way to say something without offending Dean.

“Getting close to having a chick-flick moment, you mean,” Dean says with a sigh. 

Sam nods, smiles to soften the blow, and adds, “It only started recently. The past few months, and it’s only been with you.” 

Dean sits down on the edge of the bed, jacket slung over one knee, and exhales. He shouldn’t have asked, because now he wants to know more, wants to know what’s going on, how this fits in with Sam’s other gift, if this is the gift his father and Jim expected, whether he should be worried or flattered that Sam’s precognition extends just to him when he’s a complete null zone to the clairvoyance. 

He’s lost in thought, fingers absently seeking out the dips and grooves in the carving, and then Sam’s kneeling behind him, arms around him, the cold tip of his nose pressed into Dean’s neck. 

“We’ll have time to talk after,” Sam murmurs, licks Dean’s neck, hums thoughtfully. “You still taste like beer.” 

“Haven’t showered,” Dean says with a shrug.

Sam rubs his nose across Dean’s shoulder, says, “I can tell. D’you think.” 

Dean laughs. “Sam, the shower’s barely big enough for you. We’re not _both_ going to fit in it.” 

“Wanna try?” 

Dean turns, slants his head so that he can almost see Sam’s forehead out of the corner of one eye, and lets a slow smile light up his face. “Yeah.” He laughs, once, and says, “Yeah, let’s try.” 

\--

The walk to the bathroom is quick, fumbling kisses and groping in between pulling off Dean’s shirt and shucking off Dean’s jeans, underwear. Sam’s acting like a sixteen year old, all hands and tongue, and by the time Dean’s naked, he’s feeling the same, giddy, on top of the world, like if the shower’s not big enough, maybe they’ll be able to wish it bigger, maybe the rules of science don’t apply to them. 

When the water’s hot and steaming, Sam pushes Dean in the tub, starts soaping up Dean’s body from the outside. Water cascades down Dean’s body and out of the tub, getting the floor wet, and so Dean pulls Sam in, pushes him to the front of the shower and nudges Sam’s legs apart, one on each side of the faucet. Sam’s back turns pink from where the water’s hitting but he doesn’t say anything, not until Dean drops to one knee. 

“Dean.” 

It sounds like a question more than anything. Dean nips at Sam’s ass, soothes the bite with a lick, says, “Let me,” and ignores the thin, painful need that slips out under the words. 

“I am. I. Please, Dean,” Sam says, and cants his hips before he pushes back. 

Dean spreads Sam’s ass, lets the water flow over his hands and face, clump on his eyelashes, and then leans forward, circles his tongue around Sam’s hole. 

“ _Holyshit_ ,” Sam gasps, pushing back against Dean’s face. 

Dean tries not to laugh, ends up curling his tongue and dipping inside of Sam, tasting his brother, listening as Sam starts saying things, words that curve past the limits of Dean’s comprehension. 

He fucks Sam slowly with his tongue, then adds one finger, slow and careful, without any lube save shower water and saliva. Sam shudders under Dean’s touch, around Dean’s touch, but he says, “More, Dean, please,” so Dean doesn’t stop, keeps going. 

One finger becomes two, sliding in and out along with his tongue, but then he pulls back, rests his forehead against the curve of Sam’s ass while he soaps up his fingers and then presses three inside, slow and gentle, stretching Sam open. 

Sam moves back, slides back on Dean’s fingers, fucking himself on Dean just as much as Dean’s fucking him. His hands are pressed firmly on the wall, knuckles white with the pressure even as Sam’s whole body shakes and trembles with every slick glide in and out of Dean’s fingers. 

Dean almost can’t bear to watch Sam throw his head back, let water run over his face, down his neck and arms, but its worse listening, worse hearing Sam say things about waiting, about trying to ignore this, about how he wanted to be able to live without this. Dean’s fingers slide out, and he leans out of the shower, drips water everywhere as he reaches over and plucks a condom packet out of the bag his shaving kit’s in, tears it open with his teeth. 

“…God, tried, I tried, but I couldn’t,” Sam’s saying, and Dean rolls the condom on almost viciously, determined to prove to Sam that he won’t be able to ever again, either. 

He stands there and watches, lets his eyes drift along from Sam’s hair, wet and plastered against his skin, to the muscles of Sam’s neck and back, shifting as Sam’s hips move, seeking friction, as Sam’s legs tense and relax, over and over again. 

“Dean, _please_ ,” Sam whines, pouts, and Dean can’t resist that, not now, not like this. 

He moves behind Sam, kicks Sam’s legs farther apart, rests his hands light and easy on Sam’s hipbones, and goes slow, letting Sam adjust to the burn, the stretch. Dean waits, listens each time before he sinks a little deeper in, eyes closed and teeth clenched with the self-control this is taking. 

When he’s finally in, skin to skin, he smoothes a hand down Sam’s back, and asks, “Okay?” 

“Move,” Sam replies, right away. “C’mon, Dean. Move. Fuck me. _Fuck me_.” 

\--

It all breaks down after that. 

Dean moves and Sam groans, Sam whimpers, Sam curses and shouts and yells. Dean moves and digs his fingers into Sam’s hips, moves and bites down on Sam’s back, moves and swallows down water, swallows down longing as it spills up out of the places he’d buried it, deep inside but shallow enough to come pouring out in whispered words, thankful phrases. Sam demands and begs and cries, voice hoarse and shrill in turns, and Dean can’t take it all in at once, as a complete moment, has to save fragments to be put together later. 

The flow of water over them, turning cooler with every second. The smell of Sam and soap and motel shower walls. The taste of desire fulfilled, sweet and heavy on his tongue. Sam around him, saying Dean’s name as he comes, muscles tight and clenching around Dean, drawing out Dean’s own orgasm moments later. 

Dean gasps for breath, leans against Sam, and waits for the world to connect again, for the pieces of sensation, of understanding, to come together. He pulls out slowly, gets the condom off and ties it, stretches out a hand and drops it where he thinks he remembers the garbage can being before taking a facecloth and using it to clean them both off. 

The water’s cold, Sam’s not saying anything, and the silence in the room swells as Dean reaches for towels, hands one to his brother. 

“I was an idiot, wasn’t I,” Sam says, taking his towel and meeting Dean’s eyes. 

The look Dean sees there reassures him enough so that he can say, “Yes.” 

One side of Sam’s lips quirk up as he shrugs in acknowledgement, but he leans over, sucks Dean’s earlobe into his mouth and bites, hard. 

Dean swats Sam’s head, says, “Dude. Ow,” and Sam laughs, starts and can’t seem to stop. 

\--

Once dry, they crawl into bed together, slip naked under the covers and lay with feet tangled together, Sam’s face carving out its own space in Dean’s neck. Neither of them say anything, but Dean’s not worried this time, not with one of Sam’s arms curled around Dean’s chest, listening to the sleet outside turn to rain, soft and steady, lulling them towards sleep. 

When the phone rings, they both jump. Sam shifts as Dean answers, says, “Hello?” without checking the caller ID. 

Sam turns, looks at Dean, and understands the sudden panic Dean’s showing as soon as Dean says, “Dad. Hi.”


End file.
